


Solitaire

by yellow_caballero



Series: MLM/WLW Hostility [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dasira except Basira pines through excessive romcoms and wine, Existentialism, F/F, F/M, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Jon is a catboy and I SWEAR I can explain, Jonmartin except instead of flirting they try to stab each other, M/M, Multi, Nonsexual Knifeplay, Optimism vs Nihilism, Public Humiliation, Season 4 AU, Tim/Sasha except Tim has gratuitous mental health issues, You are Not Immune to Murdersexual, looks like we're inventing a new tag today boys, so Tim/Sasha, suicidal behavior, what the girlfriends except main ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 79,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28225725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_caballero/pseuds/yellow_caballero
Summary: Peter Lukas has taken over the Institute, and Melanie has two months to bully him out. Normally Melanie's the world expert in bullying, but this time it may be easier said than done. With Martin gone insane from bloodlust, Daisy isolated as Peter Lukas' administrative assistant, and Basira pining like a useless wreck, Melanie can't rely on her friends. And when she fishes up an old nemesis from the bottom of a coffin, Melanie finds herself fighting single-handedly against loneliness, nihilism, and smarmy old men.In which the Archives discover the power of love, friendship, and incredible violence. And in which Melanie discovers the value of trying.Can you have whatever you want, if you want it hard enough?
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Melanie King & Tim Stoker, Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Series: MLM/WLW Hostility [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1976449
Comments: 115
Kudos: 167





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last installment in a 3 part Roleswap AU. This story will probably make very little sense without knowledge of the AU. 
> 
> This one really, really got away from me. Like...REALLY got away from me. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading, following long, and for being patient as I spill out this disaster.

Monday morning, two hours into their brainstorming session into how to rescue Daisy from administrative labor, the Archives received a package. 

It was probably for the best: almost nobody was actually giving any helpful suggestions. As usual for the past two months, Basira was listlessly scrolling through ‘Dear Abby’ sites and sighing loudly whenever she heard the words ‘love’, ‘girlfriend’, or ‘sociopath’. Martin wasn’t being that useful either, as they had all locked him in the recording room with his throwing knife collection and a dartboard in a desperate attempt to keep him occupied and keep him away from Jon. Jon was also not being useful, but that was just by virtue of being Jon.

Thank god for Sasha. 

“What if she actually likes being Peter Lukas’ personal assistant?” Sasha had argued. “I’ve found her pay stubs. She gets paid, like, three times her old salary.  _ And  _ she fucked with the payroll to pay us double too.”

Which had been super nice of her, actually. Georgie still never let her pay on dates, but this way Melanie could surprise her with nice gifts sometimes. But Melanie just shook her head. “Daisy would kill a man. Daisy would lock Jon in a small, dark room for years for his own protection. Daisy would falsify her CV because she’s on the run from the cops. But she would  _ not  _ actually do work.”

“For the last time,” Jon said heatedly, from where he was sitting at Martin’s desk writing in big, loopy letters, ‘Mr. Jonathan Blackwood’, “it’s called flirting and I am very receptive to it -”

“Foreplay and knifeplay are not the same things, Jon,” Melanie said severely. 

“Can’t imagine what it’s like to have Daisy care about you,” Basira muttered. 

“Maybe she left because you’re all freaks,” Sasha said, as if she was delivering a life sentence. She turned back to Melanie, who was unphased. She had accepted this about herself long ago. “Regardless of her motivations, I’m sure that if Daisy wanted to be saved she’d be saved by now. She’s a big girl, she can take care of herself.”

“But what if she needs to be rescued?” Melanie protested half-heartedly. “What if she’s just, you know, holding on until we swoop in and save her.”

Sasha’s face creased in sympathy, and the bags under her eyes seemed to darken and grow pronounced. “You can’t save everybody.”

Before any of them could think too hard about that depressing sentence, there was a knock on the Archive door. Everybody started, even Basira, and Sasha quietly walked to her desk, fished a key from her bra before unlocking her desk drawer, and strapped on her Glock. 

“Maybe we should let Martin out,” Jon whispered uncertainly, eyes darting underneath the desk as if he could possibly fit under there. 

“That’d be like solving a dog problem by attacking it with a bear,” Melanie said grimly. “Dog problem solved, but now we have a bear on our hands.” She wiped her suddenly sweaty palms on her jeans, firming her resolve. “Sasha, with me. Basira, cover Jon. Jon, get this on tape.” 

Jon had already pulled out his camcorder, giving her the thumbs up. “If I’m getting it on tape shouldn’t I be the one answering the door -”

But Melanie was already ignoring him, walking towards the door out of the Archives and cracking it open. She heard Sasha’s trainers scuff the floor behind her, cautiously standing to the side where the intruder wouldn’t immediately be able to see her. 

“It’s probably just Peter,” Basira said. To her credit, she had hopped on top of the desk and was now sitting on top of Martin’s desk, sitting on Jon’s notebook and ignoring him trying to tug it out from under her. 

“If it’s Peter I’m shooting,” Sasha said. 

Melanie opened the door.

“Hullo, love,” a cartoonishly Cockney voice said. “Special delivery to the Archives.”

Voice, because the only thing Melanie saw was a coffin. It was huge, bigger than a normal coffin, and far wider and shabbier. It was wrapped very firmly in thick chains, and seemed to be trembling slightly. 

This was a weird coffin, Melanie decided immediately. She should know - she’d seen a great deal of coffins in her life. This was...a spooky coffin. 

A head popped out from behind the coffin, then another. Two bodies stepped out from behind it. They were both very large and hulking, with small heads and big muscles. They looked a little as if they peaked in high school. 

“Special delivery,” the man on the left said. 

“You gotta sign for it,” the man on the right said. 

“Sorry,” Melanie said, as politely as she was capable. The woman with a gun who knew how to use it standing just to the left helped a lot. “All deliveries go through the front desk.”

“It’s a  _ special  _ delivery,” the man on the left said, waggling one of his eyebrows, the same way men flirted terribly with Melanie. 

“Cool,” Melanie said, “still don’t want it, though.”

Both men stared at her. 

“You have to take it,” the man on the right said. “ ‘S just how it works.”

“What would I do with a coffin?”

“Coffee table?” the man on the left said. 

“If you have a spooky coffin you’re going to want to bring it to Artifact Storage,” Melanie said, still polite and even. “We don’t take spooky coffins. Workplace safety, you know.”

The men stared at her. She stared them down. Slightly, almost unnoticeably, they quailed. Melanie was so far past the point where men could intimidate her it wasn’t even funny. 

“Hey,” the man on the right said, “aren’t you the girl with the show?”

“Yep,” Melanie said. “Come back without spooky coffins and we can do a special interview, if you want.”

The men looked at each other. 

“We’ll just leave this here,” the one on the left finally said. “Do with it whatever you want.”

The one on the right looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Should we tell ‘em -”

“I seriously don’t care,” Melanie said.

“You heard the lady,” the one on the left said, shooting another significant look at his partner. “It’s none of her business.” He tipped his hat at her, somewhat sarcastically. “Hope & Breekon at your service, ma’am. And can I say - love the show.”

And then they left, as quickly as they had come, and Melanie was left with a stupid, useless, coffin. 

Sasha joined her, reupholstering her gun, squinting at the coffin. Basira and Jon popped up behind her, Jon still carefully recording. She could see him composing the title for the video in his head - “ARCHIVES GETS A SPECIAL VISITOR AND WEIRD PACKAGE! WE DIDN’T KNOW MELANIE WAS THIS COOL???”. 

Bringing on Jon as a co-director had really helped their ratings. He had a knack for the dramatic. During one late night truth or dare he had confessed to being a theater kid, which explained everything. 

“That was something,” Basira said noncommittally. She scowled. “If  _ Daisy  _ was here, she would have just torn their heads from -

“It’s been a while since something even vaguely dangerous happened,” Sasha pointed out even as Basira continued muttering under her breath. She hadn’t taken off the gun. “Not since Jared came in to be on the show and decided to bring his meat monsters.”

“Eh, that barely counts. It was enrichment for Martin. I’ve been thinking of asking him to bring them back again so we can drop them in the Martin enclosure, like goats for the T-Red in Jurassic Park.”

Sasha sighed. “My life has gotten so stupid.”

“Word, sister. Let’s bring this thing in.”

Yet, somehow, Melanie couldn’t stop herself from agreeing with Basira. She missed the sense of safety and security that Daisy always brought. No matter what happened, Daisy could always be trusted to be right behind it with a can of kerosene. Martin’s knife skills were good, but he was a bit of a loose canon, if a canon blew knives. 

It was stupid, but it had always felt as if the Archives needed a protector. Melanie did the best she could, and Sasha was a great shot, but it just wasn’t the same without Daisy and Ti -

It just wasn’t the same. But nothing ever was. 

  
  
  


“So let me get this straight.”

“Nothing straight about you,” Melanie said magnanimously, “but shoot.”

Georgie giggled and pecked her on the cheek, twirling her car keys in her hand. “Could you say that I’m a  _ straight  _ shot?”

“That one was just bad!”

Melanie had volunteered to go out with Georgie to run errands, just to keep her company. It was nice to be at a point in your relationship when you no longer felt the need to constantly be impressing each other, and to just be where it was nice to spend time together. Melanie seized the time that they had together, as it wasn’t always common. Georgie and Gerry left on rare book hunts fairly frequently, often away for weeks at a time, and Melanie was left to anguish alone in lovesickness. Jon, who enjoyed having his gigantic flat to himself, had no sympathy. 

Today they were at a cat boarding house, where Georgie had stashed her cat a while ago. Melanie had never actually met Georgie’s cat, and had been surprised upon hearing that he existed. Apparently he had been in kitty behavioral boot camp for a month, and then a different boot camp once he ‘defeated’ the first one, whatever that meant, before he fell into a kitty coma and was left in kitty long term care. He had been in his care facility for a few weeks, and Georgie had just gotten home to pick him up.

Melanie had no idea what any of this meant. She hadn’t known that cats could ‘defeat’ boot camp, much less fall into comas. Georgie, despite her cat’s extremely adventurous and dangerous life, seemed rather cheerful and unconcerned about the whole thing. 

“I think he gets involved in kitty gang wars,” Georgie said cheerfully, as if you could ever say that cheerfully. They walked across the parking lot, and Melanie held the boarding house’s door open for Georgie like a gentlewoman. “I try to not be an overbearing mother and let him have his own life. It works out well for me, anyway - I use his connections as an information network to find my own books.”

“You can talk to cats?” Melanie said, impressed and too used to Georgie to be shocked.

“ _ How to Communicate with your Feline  _ is a Barker,” Georgie said, as they approached the desk. “Hello, I’m here to pick up The Admiral? My name is Georgie Barker.” 

The worker whitened and crossed herself before disappearing into the back. After a second, ragged and exhausted cheers echoed through the small lobby. 

“There really is a Barker for everything, huh,” Melanie said, impressed. 

Georgie preened. “I’m working with Elias to set up some kind of renting system.”

“From  _ prison _ ?”

“I think this is more of a ‘you’re locked in here with me’ situation.” Georgie rolled her eyes, leaning against the counter. “Anyway, there’s tons of cat Barkers. There’s this one that makes everybody think you’re a cat, really nasty and horrific piece of work -”

The worker lugged out a cat carrier as if she was holding a live bomb, gingerly depositing it on the counter. Georgie giggled and cooed into the carrier, sticking her finger inside. Melanie bent to get a better look. 

It was...just a cat. Long haired and grey, with a slightly squashed face and an impudent expression, it really was just a cute grey Persian. The weirdest thing about him was his...unnaturally green eyes.

“He doesn’t  _ look  _ evil,” Melanie said dubiously. 

“He’s not evil, he just goes into a dissociative state and commits atrocities,” Georgie said, paying the clerk as she practically sobbed with relief to be rid of him. Georgie bent down in front of the carrier, making kissy faces and cooing noises. “You’re my little crime against god! Yes you are! Oh, you’re so cute!”

On the way back to the car Georgie held the cat carrier, as Melanie had a healthy sense of self-preservation. Melanie occupied herself reading the vet’s notes, raising her eyebrows. “It says here that he was physiologically dead but mentally alive for two months, and when he woke up he no longer had a heartbeat.”

“Must be a parasite.”

“Sounds like it…” Melanie squinted at the paper. “It says here he intimidates the other animals into giving their life stories?!”

“How does an animal give a life story?”

“That’s just what it says!”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have let him lick so many Barkers,” Georgie said dubiously, before shrugging. “Well, no use crying over spilled Eldritch juice. Anyway, you never answered my question.”

Melanie unlocked the car door for Georgie before slipping into the passenger seat. “What question?”

“I’m trying to get things straight. You know Jon, he’s terrible at explaining anything in a rational manner. Always giving step five before step two, you know.” Melanie nodded, as she did, in fact, know. Georgie started the car, and backed them out of the parking lot. “What’s really going on with him and Martin? He came back home two months ago yelling about how he realized that he’s capable of falling in love again, and ever since then he’s been coming home with multiple stab wounds. I’m worried the two things are related.”

“They’re absolutely related,” Melanie said, depressed. At least none of the cuts were ever deeper than paper cuts, so they all had to assume Martin didn’t  _ actually  _ want to kill him. “Martin’s gotten a lot more violent since he came home from India. We’ve been trying not to tell Daisy about it since it just validates her dumb conspiracy theory that Martin’s a serial killer, but his enthusiasm is getting to be a bit much.”

Georgie just hummed, tapping the steering wheel as she careened them into traffic. “Is Jon  _ actually  _ in love with Martin, or does he just grow attached to anybody who tries to hurt him?”

Melanie opened her mouth to protest that Jon doesn’t grow attached to people who attack him, but then she remembered the beginning of his relationship with Daisy. Also, objectively, the beginning of his relationship with her and Basira. Also him and Helen, since she tried to stab him and all. He was actually the first one to forgive Sasha and - yeah, after they tried to kill him.

“Oh my god,” Melanie said, horrified. “He’s a masochist.”

“Duh, we already knew that,” Georgie, who Melanie remembered  _ used to date him _ , said, rolling her eyes. “But this is a bit beyond the pale even for knife based foreplay. I wonder if it’s healthy.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie said, with an equal amount of horror. “I need to give him a therapy session.”

Thankfully, Melanie didn’t get the opportunity. When they got back to Georgie’s place, loudly yelling about how they were home and getting two ‘welcome home’ shouts in response, Georgie sat the Admiral’s cat carrier on the floor and unlatched the cage. As Jon thumped down the carpeted steps from the first floor, Georgie scooped up the unimpressed cat into her arms and snuggled him. 

“How’s my sweet baby doing,” Georgie crooned, bouncing him slightly. “It’s so good to have you home, my adorable little perfect murder machine. Oh, you are just too cute!”

“Georgie, please don’t talk that way to Melanie when I’m ho - good god.” Jon stopped on the last step of the staircase, blanching. “Oh no.” 

“Get over your hatred of The Admiral,” Georgie said severely. The Admiral blinked sleepily, strangely zen for a cat that was supposedly a demon. “He loves you, you can’t treat him like this.”

“I saw The Admiral trick a ragtag group of heroic dogs into falling out of a cherry picker crane,” Jon said, voice rising into hysteria. 

“That could have been an accident.”

“He was  _ wearing sunglasses _ .”

Georgie huffed. “It’s not his fault he’s evil! He just needs love and support. Which we will provide, because we love him.” She smiled at The Admiral, who was playfully batting at her nose. “Maybe therapy.”

“Do you feel threatened by the cat, Jon?” Melanie asked intensely. “Do you feel as if you are transferring the motherly love you never received into the cat?”

“I - maybe -”

“Is that why you only fall in love with people who promise to hurt you, Jon?”

“Wow, look at the time, must iron my sheets,” Jon said, quickly turning tail and fleeing back up the staircase. 

For her part, Georgie patted Melanie on the back. “You’re great at this therapy thing, honey.”

Melanie sighed. “It’s a heavy burden being the team therapist but I am bearing it well.”

“Think of it this way,” Georgie encouraged. “We don’t need an adorable and fuzzy cat. We have Jon! And we don’t need Jon to be the Eldritch monster of our nightmares, because we have this adorable and fuzzy cat.”

“I’ve been thinking of it in terms of weasels, actually, but cat works too.” Melanie squinted at Georgie. “Is that why you let him mooch off you?”

“His rent is moral support and cuddles,” Georgie said serenely. 

Melanie wondered if Jon was okay with this, before remembering that Jon was an absolute doormat who was consistently desperate for affection and love, so probably. Besides, for free room and board, Melanie would also be perfectly fine with being Georgie’s pet. Actually that was kind of ho -

Anyway, Melanie needed her own therapy session. The business with the coffin that day had bothered her more than she was expecting, and Gerry was usually a good rational head. You could tell him things you couldn’t tell other people, sometimes - even if that was mostly because he only had two friends and didn’t even really talk that much. 

As usual, he was curled up in one of the overly cushy chairs in the den, reading an intimidatingly large book. 

“Hey, Gerry?” Melanie asked, somewhat embarrassed over interrupting his ten hour a day reading time. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.” 

Melanie fought the urge to shuffle her feet. “So you’re like a demon of death, right?”

“A demon of death punched me in the face one time and that gives me supernatural clout, yes.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I meant.” Melanie exhaled shakily. “So, like, when someone dies...hypothetically someone who you very much hate…” Gerry looked up from his book, and his dark eyes focused on her. Melanie flushed. “How long does it take?”

“How long does what take?”

Melanie waved a hand, uncomfortable. “You know. How long does it take before you...feel okay about it. Before it stops hurting. I guess when the grieving process is over or whatever. What’s the average? Like, four months? Four months sounds right.”

But Gerry just frowned, creasing his almost unlined face. “There’s no timeline on these things, Melanie.”

“So six months?”

“It’ll hurt however long it hurts,” Gerry said. “As time goes by, the pain will bleach and pale in the sun. The waves of grief will grow further and further apart. You’ll get to the point where you can think of him without pain. But no, it never really stops hurting. It’s a pain that’s a part of you now.”

“That sucks,” Melanie said, incredibly depressed over this.

“Yep,” Gerry said, going back to his book. “Think of it this way: every life experience shapes you and changes you. Nobody makes it out of life unscathed. The people we meet change us and add another square to that mosaic of who we are. Somebody you meet and then lose is just as much a part of you as Georgie or Jon or me. It’s not good or bad. It just is.”

Melanie squinted at him. “Is this what you tell people when you pretend to make contact with their loved ones from beyond the grave?”

“That’ll be twenty quid.”

Well, Melanie thought to herself in a frantic attempt to stay on the bright side of things, how many people can actually directly ask a guy who was punched in the face by a death demon about grief? She was lucky. Maybe.

Then again, how many people had their arch nemesis murdered stopping an evil clown party in a heroically stupid act of self-sacrifice to protect her?

  
  
  
  


The next day, Melanie walked inside the Archives to find Martin dropping explosives down into the coffin. 

They seemed to fall for a very, very long time, before the coffin rattled with the distant sounds of an explosion. A web of chains lay strewn around where Martin was sitting, a padlock and a pair of bolt cutters lying next to each other. Martin, for his part, was serenely cutting off slices of C4, wrapping them, lighting them, and dropping them into the coffin and waiting for the explosion. When the explosion rocked the coffin he nodded thoughtfully, and began cutting another piece of C4.

“Hey,” Melanie gritted out between clenched teeth, “Martin. How are you?”

“Doing great,” Martin said. He was dressed in his now usual uniform of a navy blue jumper with a  _ gratuitous  _ amount of blood stains and similarly bloodstained jeans. There were thick rips in the jeans, as if they were made with a knife. 

“What’re you...doing...there...Martin?”

“Oh, you know,” Martin said, “fishing.”

He dropped another explosive. 

“I see.”

A muffled boom.

“Say,” Martin said, “do you know where to rent a cement mixer?”

“You know,” Melanie said, strangled, “can’t say that I do. You can check Google.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that.” Martin sliced off another strip of C4. “I’d suggest you all work in the library today. This thing has some nasty compulsions on it. It tries to get people to go inside, you see.”

Melanie stared at the coffin. It emanated an incredible sense of menace. 

“I’ll see if we can write off the cement mixer as a business expense.”

“Daisy’ll expense anything, so I’m sure it’s possible.”

It was a little impossible to argue with Martin, because Martin thought about nothing but extreme violence these days, so Melanie silently moved her operations into the library and directed the others, when they came in, to do the same. 

Their biggest problem was Jon, who was ignoring his own safety and the safety of others by hovering by Martin and asking him probing questions about what he was doing as he twirled his curly hair around one finger. Martin answered affably in between one-handed attempts to pin his hand to the ground with a knife. To Jon’s credit, he had gotten much better at dodging since the first few weeks, and evaded the lazy swipes with ease as he asked questions about obscure fishing techniques. They were even laughing. 

“That’s enough of that,” Basira said, dragging Jon away as he weakly yelled protests. Martin had found a fishing pole somewhere, and was attaching a large hunk of meat to a hook. “Martin, try not to burn down the place. It’s just repetitive.”

True. The cowpen still had scorch marks, and the library had been almost totally fried. They had been forced to reupholster it with lots of comfy bean bag chairs and a recreation center complete with video games, as donated by Georgie. Before she had been poached, Daisy spent one hundred percent of her time playing through Sonic Adventures 2 repeatedly. Which was more evidence for it being impossible for her to have been poached  _ voluntarily _ , but whatever. 

But Sasha was just standing on the opposite end of the coffin, holding the padlock, looking thoughtful. Sasha always looked a little thoughtful, mostly because she was always thinking, and Melanie drifted closer to her. People lost in thought often ended up accidentally jumping into coffins. 

Maybe she caught the silent question, because Sasha held up the padlock. “You remember the Joshua Gillespie case?”

“No?”

Sasha just sighed. “And I can’t cross-reference since so many statements were destroyed. If I’m remembering correctly, some idiot sat with this in his flat for months. Said it was delivered by two Cockney delivery men.”

“Well, it had to have come from somewhere,” Melanie said diplomatically.

But Sasha didn’t look assured, intense brown eyes fixed on the coffin. The interior seemed to go on forever, an inky blackness that absorbed all light sinking on into infinity. Like a hole in the world, in their Archives. 

The Archives had never been a place of comfort and security. Elias had made sure of that. But at least they were a danger Melanie was used to, something malevolent yet familiar. And ever since those statements had burned...that oppressive, inspecting force had seemed to lighten on them just a bit. Just enough. 

“He mentioned once -” Sasha started, before abruptly stopping. 

Melanie waited for her to finish, giving her time, but she seemed done. Sasha’s lips were pressed together tightly, and her eyes were rooted to the coffin. Melanie slowly put her hand on her shoulder, squeezing it, and carefully directed her back to the library. She went without much complaint. She didn’t take her eyes off the coffin, the entire time. 

Just to be safe, Melanie filched the key to the library from Jon’s office, made sure everybody was inside, and silently locked it. They wouldn’t notice for a bit - at least, until one of them needed to use the bathroom. She’d deal with the complaining later. 

Instead, she set up her CCTV camera, fixing it to stare directly at the coffin. No surprises, and great footage for the show in case something happened. Then she sat next to Martin, watching him calmly lower his whole-ass fishing pole into the coffin. It kept going, and going, and going…

“You aren’t going to sit in the library?” Martin asked. 

Melanie just shook her head. “Buddy system. Don’t wanna leave you alone out here.”

“You shouldn’t worry about me,” Martin said serenely. “The call of blood is stronger than the call of the pit.”

“I am literally so worried about you.”

They sat in silence, only punctuated by Martin occasionally growing frustrated by the lack of bites - of fish, from where he was fishing, in the mystical death pit - and leaving the Archives to go scream and destroy a room. That was something about Martin lately, Melanie had noticed: about once a day he had intense and all-consumingly destructive rages, but he always made sure to go somewhere else as he did it. She was also fairly sure Martin had been having these rages since  _ before  _ he went to India, but they were just much less frequent and less violent. It was difficult not to flash back to the flesh incident and subsequent mass murder. 

Until, finally, Melanie heard an insistent knocking. She had almost jumped out of her skin, terrified that it was coming from the coffin, before she realized that it was just coming from the library. Somewhat sheepishly, she got up to let an upset Jon out, who apparently had to piss. 

A few minutes later he came back, somewhat disgruntled, and sat down in front of the coffin. Melanie glared at him until he kept a reasonable distance from Martin, whose eyes were drifting alarmingly towards his Hello Kitty switchblade. 

“What exactly are you fishing for, anyway?” Jon complained. “You two are missing out on the charades we’re playing in the library.”

“Big game,” Martin said evenly. “You know how some fishermen drop bombs in lakes and see what comes out? It’s like that.”

“...so why -”

“Not enough things to kill here.”

“Your self-restraint is a very admirable trait, and part of what I respect about you!”

“Thanks, Jon, I respect you too!”

Jon leaned forward, propping an elbow on the edge of the coffin. “You know, you just have, like, the most enrapturing eyes.”

“Really? I’m a little self-conscious about them.”

“No, the crimson is really captivating.” Jon leaned forward further, and Melanie realized with a jolt that half his torso was leaning over the edge of the coffin. “They’re just...so deep, like an endless pit...you feel like you can fall forever down them…”

“Thanks?” Martin said. He was eyeing Jon’s slow lean over the coffin with just as much alarm as Melanie. “Jon, maybe you shouldn’t get so close.”

“They really just go on forever, huh,” Jon said, except he was no longer looking at Martin. He was looking down into the coffin instead, his tone dreamy and distant. “You feel like you can fall through the world, like this. Like you can get away from all of your worries.”

For a brief, stupid second, Melanie - waited. She waited for Daisy to pop up behind Jon, just like always, and grab him by the scruff of his jacket and pull him away from danger, just like always. She pushed them behind herself when they were in danger, and she was the first to pull Jon away from whatever might hurt him. For just a second, Melanie, didn’t do anything, because she was waiting for Daisy to do it. 

That second was enough. 

“Man,” Jon said, “wouldn’t it be nice to just get  _ away  _ from it all.”

Then something, a small black fuzzy dot on Jon’s hand that may have been a small bug, startled Jon so severely that he yelped and lost his balance. 

It almost happened almost in slow motion. He jolted forward, his shoulders twisted, and he overbalanced. His eyes widened, his mouth opened in the preparation of a scream, and then he was gone. 

This time, at least, Melanie didn’t hesitate. 

She grabbed the thin and slick line of fishing wire still swinging into the coffin, ignoring Martin’s scream of terror or rage, and wound it firmly around her wrist. This was going to hurt like a bitch. 

Without stopping to think about what she was doing, because she was confident that if she did then she would back out, Melanie rose up on her knees and tipped forward into the coffin herself. 

Day, then night.

The blackness overtook her immediately. She didn’t know what she had been expecting - some kind of structure, maybe stairs or a slide or whatever - but there was nothing. Melanie fell, her stomach swooping into her throat, the wind whistling through her ears, and she frantically tried to right herself to where she was sprayed out instead of in a ball. The fishing wire around her wrist cut into her skin painfully, as Melanie fell into nothing. 

It didn’t feel like falling. There was no jerking sensation, no sensation of sinking. Melanie had never skydived, but Georgie had, and she had told her about it. Georgie had described it as flying - like you’re sailing through everything, and nothing.

That was what this felt like. Like she wasn’t in a tight, claustrophobic cavern - like she was free, for the very first time, and that she was flying. 

No, no, no. Think of Helen, think of how it felt to walk through her hallways. You had to focus, you had to know where A and B were, or else you were lost. It wasn’t about reality, not really - your mind  _ made  _ your reality. Nobody alive and sane had walked through Helen’s hallways more often than Melanie. She could do this. Think of Michael’s hallways, over-large or over-small, like Alice in Wonderland shrinking up and down. Remember everything in relation.

Think of _ Jon _ . 

Melanie reached out her hand, and with every ounce of willpower she could dredge up in this infinite nothing, she imagined Jon’s hand in hers. It was big, uncalloused and soft and smooth, with lithe fingers like a pianist’s. Darker than hers, thinner and bony where Georgie’s were soft and small. He always clenched tightly, not like Basira who always left the grip loose. It was smooth and unscarred, not like Daisy’s rough and ropy and calloused hands. They all existed in relation to each other, every one, they fit together in this strange and interconnected web that was so fragile and easily broken but so strong. 

The links that chained them together were so fragile. Daisy was gone, Martin was different, Basira was depressed and distant, Sasha was grieving, and he was -

But Melanie wasn’t  _ alone _ . And neither was Jon. 

And, just like that, Melanie felt a grip slip into hers. 

Jon was screaming. Very, very loudly. 

“Shut up,” Melanie said, somehow. She should be breathless. Shouldn’t she be breathless? “You’re disrupting my concentration.”

“I am  _ falling _ !” Jon screamed. 

“Stop panicking!” Melanie said, who was trying very hard not to panic herself. As usual, it was somehow easy to remain calm when she had to. “I’m going to reel you in.”

She groaned and pulled Jon up, clutching to him tightly. She couldn’t see him, in this endless dark, but something about him seemed different. 

It was his eyes - they were glowing, faintly, a weak and sickly green. 

“Hold on tight to me,” Melanie yelled, “Martin’s going to bring us back up.”

There was no rushing of the wind. There was no anything: no sound, no sight, no smell or taste or touch. There was nothing but Jon’s hand in hers. 

That was why she heard what Jon said perfectly, his voice cutting through the darkness.

“I can’t go back up!”

“Idiot!” Melanie squeezed his hand, as hard as he could. “I’m here, we can get back just fine -”

“No, I mean I’m not going with you!”

“Coffin’s brainwashed you, sport,” Melanie said flatly, falling thousands of feet down in the air. If it wasn’t for the fact that she felt it, she felt the fact that the sky was growing further and further away and that the ground was encroaching so much closer, she wouldn’t have known that they were falling at all. “We’re going, come on.”

“I’m not leaving him here!” Jon yelled, his eyes flashing green. “I just  _ found  _ him, I’m not  _ leaving  _ \- go on without me!”

Melanie’s heart thumped her ribcage so hard it seemed to shake. “Found  _ who _ ?”

“ _ Tim! I found Tim! _ ”

Melanie was silent. 

Slowly, she reached out and grabbed Jon’s other hand too, until their hands were clasped together and they were falling, falling, falling. She slipped the wire from her wrist to his easily, and gave it a hard yank. 

“What are you doing?” Jon yelled. “Melanie, what -”

“I’m good at finding my way out of places,” Melanie said, fighting the tremble of her voice. “And you’re so good at getting lost, Jon. Tell Martin to throw the line in for me once you’re out.”

“Hey, idiot -”

But Melanie had already yanked very hard on the line, and as Jon groaned when the line started pulling him up Melanie let go. 

This time, it really was falling. 

And, for the first time, Melanie was scared. 

She hit ground, and knew nothing else. 

  
  
  


“What are you  _ doing _ ?” Melanie cried, and to her surprise and horror she found that she was crying. “He’s trying to get you to  _ kill yourself _ , you know that!”

“I’m not stupid,” Stoker said harshly, shaking her hand free. “But it’s me or you guys, okay?” He stopped short, jaw working. “It’s bitchy, mean, innocent humans or a monster. It’s simple math. Even you can figure it out.”

“You aren’t a monster!” Awful, rebellious tears pricked at Melanie’s eyes. “You’re just an asshole, Tim, you don’t deserve to  _ die _ .”

“Yes, I do,” Tim said, didn’t say, will never say. 

  
  
  


Melanie knew again, kind of.

There was dirt under her fingers. A lot of dirt, actually. She had the sense, somehow, that from here on it was just dirt. Nothing but dirt. Dirt until she died, dirt after she died, dirt in hell, dirt in heaven -

Melanie pinched herself, hard. She was here for Tim. Tim was her friend. She was getting Tim out of here. 

Just keep thinking it. Just keep thinking it. She was here for Tim. Tim was her friend. She was getting him out of here. She was here for Tim. Tim was -

Whatever the reason Jon knew that Tim was here, whatever strange sense he had - maybe the sense that burst in the green light in his eyes - Melanie didn’t have it. She was blind, physically and spiritually, and she had no idea where he was. 

There was screaming and groaning, all around her. It was so loud it made it hard to think. Groans of the damned, screams of the tortured. It drowned out the thoughts in her head, the knowledge that she was here for Tim, that Tim was her friend, that she was getting him out of here -

Desperately, without sight, without any idea of where to go or what to do, feeling like an idiot for putting herself in this situation, Melanie began digging. 

The dirt was soft and loamy under her fingers. Just like the dirt in her old backyard as a kid, that she used to dig into with a trowel. Dad would help her, sometimes, making bad jokes about digging a hole to China. Back then, Melanie had found it very important to inform him that digging a hole to China was impossible. Nikola Orsinov took that from her, and it was lost. 

Tim had killed Nikola Orsinov for her. He hadn’t said it, but he had known. She would have gone, if not to avenge Dad then just to be sure that Nikola couldn’t hurt anybody else ever again. Tim had known that, so he had gone. 

Melanie dug her hands into the soil, shuddering at the strange texture. It didn’t feel like her backyard anymore. It felt like plastic, cold and hard, splinters under her nails. 

The groans of pain were so loud, that Melanie shouted just to shut them up. Maybe Tim would hear her. She should wander around, look for him, instead of digging pointlessly into the dirt - but when she crouched down, the screams grew louder, and if she pressed her ear to the dirt then they seemed the loudest of all. 

So she dug. And she yelled while she did it.

“Timothy Stoker, you son of a bitch! Wake up, you’ve been sleeping long enough! You’re late for work!”

She didn’t know why she landed on that. It seemed, somehow, to make sense. 

“Jon’s going to yell at you for being late, you know,” Melanie cried. “He really - he really hates you, Tim! Wake up, you don’t want him to dress you down in front of everyone!”

Dirt crushed under her nails, marring her skin, and she dug. 

“You’re going to leave Sasha there all alone? She needs her partner there at work. You have to figure out your dumb mysteries or whatever. Do you know what she’s been like without you? She’s been productive! It’s disgusting!”

Screams echoed, but Melanie yelled louder. 

“Who are we going to make fun of without you there, idiot? Who else is going to throw himself in front of bullets just for  _ guilt _ ? That’s so boring!”

Melanie dug, and dug, and dug, and it seemed like the ground was trying to swallow her whole. She felt...something, scrabbling at her arm, but she ignored it. She’d find him. He was there. 

“We don’t need you, you jerk! We  _ want  _ you! We want you back! Wake up!”

She dug, and dug, and dug…

“Wake up! Wake up! You’re late for work! Wake up!”

Something cold clasped her wrist. It was tight, and big, and calloused, and filthy. And Melanie, who knew the press of her friend’s hands in hers, knew whose it was. 

It would have been easier with a shovel. She couldn’t just pull him up, as if the dirt was water. But she knew, somehow, that he was digging too, with his own two hands. If she shook her hand free of his grip she could make a wider opening, but she didn’t dare. 

She didn’t stop yelling. Running out of things to say, putting all of her focus into what she was doing, Melanie found herself just meaninglessly yelling, without thinking about it, “Wake up! Wake up!  _ Wake up _ !”

And Melanie pulled, harder than she’d ever pulled, and when her arm broke back into air a hand erupted from the dirt. 

Then a wrist. Then an arm. Melanie pulled, every muscle in her body straining, as she screamed with exertion. A shoulder, a clavicle, a  _ head  _ -

Melanie pulled Tim out of the ground, limb by limb. 

Horrifyingly, he was awake. 

He collapsed on the dirt floor, and she knew from the way he sprawled that he couldn’t walk. He threw up, violently, spewing thick black chunks of dirt. It lasted for minutes, heaving and heaving. Melanie crouched down next to him, every muscle aching, and silently pushed his dirty and clumped hair away from his face. It had grown long. That struck Melanie, somehow - that his hair had  _ kept growing  _ while he was buried alive. 

“I heard you,” Tim growled, “the first ten times.”

He was breathing strangely, ragged and torn long-sleeved shirt that might have been blue once heaving in and out. He seemed to be struggling for breath, or uncertain that he could breathe. As if every time he took a breath, he stopped himself prematurely, certain that he wouldn’t be able to complete the motion. 

It occurred to her, too late, that she could see him, just faintly. In fact, if she looked around, she could see around them, however dimly, like an abandoned field at twilight. Not that there was much to see: just endless ground, stretching on forever. In some places, the dirt roiled and bubbled, but nothing ever broke the surface. 

If she looked down, she could see that Tim was trying to speak, but he couldn’t manage any words. He seemed to have almost forgotten how, save for his short exclamation, constantly spitting up dirt. 

Oh, well. She doubted he’d have anything nice to say. Guy was a pill. 

Melanie bent down and carefully helped him up, slinging his arm around her shoulders. She wheezed, but not as much as she thought she would - she would have never been able to even support him before this, but now he was practically hanging onto her with ease. Almost all of his weight was on her, but after a little bit it seemed that he could kick his legs back into at least keeping him leaning on Melanie instead of draped on her. 

She sneezed. A  _ lot  _ of dirt was raining down from his hair. 

Tim slurred something, which could possibly be interpreted as ‘Now you’re stuck here too.’

“No I’m not,” Melanie said impatiently. “I can get us out of anywhere.”

When Tim tried to speak again he just seemed to gasp on the stale and stifling air, and Melanie focused on dragging them across the bleak landscape. 

“I can get us out of anywhere,” Melanie said, and for some strange reason she was completely calm and confident in this. In that second, it felt as if she really could do anything, so long as she wanted it enough. “All we have to do is look for a door.”

Tim gagged something about the Spiral. 

“She doesn’t open a door to me,” Melanie said stubbornly. “ _ I  _ open a door to  _ her _ .”

And if that wasn’t how the Spiral worked - well, that was kind of the Spiral’s whole thing. 

So Melanie didn’t doubt herself, not for one second. She dragged them through that endless wasteland, even as Tim collapsed and rattled deep, heaving breaths and looked around frantically as if he couldn’t understand what was going on. Melanie settled for keeping one hand of hers wrapped in his, just so he remembered who she was and where they were, and she focused her attention on finding a door. 

It would be yellow. It would be a little wonky. It was her friend, and in its hallways two friends would be waiting. Beyond the reach of the corridors, she could find the rest of her friends, her girlfriend, her home. It was all there. All Melanie had to do was reach for it.

At first, it seemed like a mirage, born from a wish. Maybe it was. But Melanie seized on that mirage, bending it into reality with the power of her will, and it solidified into something real. As real as it could be, as anything could be. 

“We’re almost there,” Melanie whispered, “almost there. Hold on. We’re going home. And  _ you _ , mister, are getting a bath.”

They reached the door. Melanie twisted the doorknob, half-expecting to see Helen waiting at its entrance just as always, but she wasn’t there. The halls were empty, and seemed to be thickly layered with sand patterned like a bowling alley carpet. 

Well. Better than this. Melanie dragged them through, and tripped on the strange and shifting sand, and landed face first on the coarse grains. Tim topped with her, landing solidly on top of her, and Melanie wheezed with the weight. 

Then she passed out. 

Objectively, a stupid thing to do. 

  
  
  
  


“Is the polycule mandatory?”

Yes, idiot. 

  
  
  


“ - that was  _ so stupid _ !”

The voice, with its distinct somewhat painful timbers, was immediately recognizable as Michael. They also seemed to be a bit hysterical, which was a new one for the almost zen-like calm that the kid carried with them these days, but Melanie was distantly aware that she probably deserved it. 

“I didn’t fall in on  _ purpose _ !” Jon protested. “Unlike someone I can name -”

“I almost  _ digested  _ her, they were almost half-eaten when I found them -”

“If you made Melanie Spiral we are having serious words, Michael.”

“They’re fine, Basira, but even if they  _ weren’t  _ then it wouldn’t be my  _ fault  _ because they  _ punched a hole in my hallways  _ -”

“It’s a very strange sensation,” Helen said sympathetically. “Feels a little like bad sushi.”

“It’s like I had bad sushi made of  _ dirt _ !”

“And worms.”

“I like worms, though.”

“Everybody shut up,” Sasha shouted, like a whip cracking. “They’re waking up!”

Melanie opened her eyes. From where he lay on top of her, she felt Tim shift on top of her. She was growing extremely filthy, from sheer contact with Tim. 

Pressing up hard on her cheek was an extremely recognizable sensation: the hard and cold cement of the Archive floor, long familiar from falling dead asleep on it more than once. It wasn’t dirt. It was hard, cold, beautiful cement. 

“I just want everybody to know this isn’t my fault,” Jon said severely. “I saw a spider.”

“I feel like this is mostly my fault,” Martin said, “but in my defense, I hadn’t blown anything up in, like, two whole days. I can’t be held responsible. And hey - Tim!”

“You are so fat,” Melanie wheezed, “please get him off of me.”

She saw Sasha’s trainers immediately; she had long since swapped out her heels, pencil skirt, and blouse for everybody else’s casual Friday. She carefully picked Tim up, lifting his weight from her, and Melanie was able to roll herself onto her black. The fluorescent lighting was blinding, making her hiss and throw her hands over her eyes until Helen quickly dropped some sunglasses on her head. 

Once she put them on, she was treated to the sight of everybody in the Archives clustered around her, blinking owlishly. Jon and Martin both looked somewhat guilty. Basira looked incredulous, and there was something else in her face that was difficult to name. Michael seemed extremely put out, so much as it was possible to interpret any of his expressions, and Helen looked as if Christmas had come early. 

And when Melanie shakily sat up, she saw Sasha carefully holding Tim in an effortless bridal carry. For a second, Melanie reeled at the strength, before she saw how loosely Tim’s clothes hung on his frame. 

Sasha was crying. Her face was bent into Tim’s chest, and she was crying. 

And Tim was crying too. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Then, of course, Tim got really annoying. 

In the midst of their pain and grief, Melanie had kind of forgotten how annoying Tim was. They really only had that short period of time together, barely a week, where they were all friends, and even then the spectre of the Unknowing had settled heavily over Tim and Melanie. It was stupid, to mourn somebody that much when you had only worked together with for two weeks, and it was even stupider for those two weeks to somehow make you forget that someone was an annoying asshole, but somehow both were true. They had known him as the villain for so long, and then he had changed. It had made them feel as if maybe anybody could change. Melanie hated to say it, but Tim had kind of given her faith in humanity, which was not a sentence she ever thought she’d say about a cop.

That being said, Tim had always been annoying and unlikable. He was just now extremely annoying in a very different way. 

He didn’t talk very much. That normally wouldn’t be that annoying - almost nobody at the Archives but Melanie or Jon on a tangent were actually talkative - except that he wasn’t even responding to basic questions like ‘do you need medical attention’ or ‘were you driven insane by the Eldritch powers which mildly inconvenience us all’. 

They had to give him sunglasses too, giving his eyes time to adjust back to actual light. His eyes didn’t seem to focus on any of them, looking past or through. When Sasha cried on him or shook him, it was like she was barely even there. Sometimes he would start randomly gagging, and someone would have to grab the closest wastebasket so he could retch. They gave him a gallon of water and he seemed almost unable to drink it - taking a long swallow, gagging on it, and then throwing it back up. He would zone out, then snap back to awareness suddenly and freak out, as if he had forgotten where he was. 

They tried to get him to take a shower in the little shower in the unisex bathroom, but when Jon carefully pulled him into the bathroom and then tried to leave and close the door, he started abruptly screaming in pure, unadulterated panic. Jon had to stay in the bathroom and help him take the shower. Jon had been almost weirdly calm about it, barely even mentioning that it had happened as he lent Tim some of the spare clothing that he kept in his office. Jon’s clothing, which would have never fit six months ago, now hung snugly on Tim’s frame, a little long. The overlarge jumper dangled over his hands, making him seem strange and small. 

All of this was so bizarre and upsetting that Melanie could barely process it. She was a liberal, she had read all of the articles about how solitary confinement for over fifteen days was torture, and that wasn’t even being  _ buried alive _ . Had he been awake? Had he been awake the entire time? 

She couldn’t even think about it. Melanie was repressing this as hard as possible while it was happening in front of her. Jon had tried to check in with her, assuming that she was also traumatized or whatever, but she waved him off and directed him to Sasha instead. Sasha, who was looking very calm and normal about this entire thing, which probably meant that she was having a breakdown. 

In the meantime, they had deposited Tim in one of the library beanbags and, out of lack of anything better, one of Daisy’s old Twilight novels. When Melanie pressed it into his hands, he just stared down at it as if confused by books existing in his vicinity. 

“If you’re brain damaged we have to take you to the hospital, dude,” Melanie said, squatting on the floor with a strained smile. She also seriously needed a shower, but that didn’t seem so important right now. Tim just stared at her, expressionless, the sunglasses giving him a strange blank affect. “Can you, like, give us something?” Something occurred to her. “Do you think this is a weird dream? I can pinch you if you think it’s a dream.”

Tim just stared at her. Finally, he said, “You don’t dream in there.”

They stared at each other. 

“I am going to have a meltdown,” Melanie said. She stood up, legs aching. Her hands still hurt. She had realized, belatedly, that they were a bit mangled and bleeding. She had been digging harder than she had thought, for longer than she had thought. Basira had said that she was in there for two hours. “Okay. I’ll be back. I need to talk logistics with the others. Let me know if you’re Team Edward or Team Jacob later, okay?”

Finally, some of that seemed to permeate Tim’s brain. His eyes focused on her, not just glazed and distant. He shook his head frantically. He clearly tried to say something, but it stuck in his mouth, and he started gagging again. Melanie grabbed the wastebasket next to him and held it out but he just waved it off. His chest was heaving again, sucking in breaths frantically. 

After another minute helping him calm his breathing and work him down from the panic attack - thank you, Melanie’s CBT therapist - Tim was finally calm again. Melanie felt incredibly, supremely exhausted. 

She settled for taking her own deep breath in and out. Something about what she had said set him off - what was it? Twilight, the others, leaving -

“You can nod yes or no. Is it okay if I leave you alone?” Tim shook his head no. Great. That was fine. “Do you want me to bring Sasha in here to keep you company?”

Strangely, Tim shook his head no again. His eyes were still glazed, what she could see of them behind his sunglasses. His breathing picked up again when she said Sasha’s name, and Melanie waited a minute for it to die back down. 

“You want me to stay?”

Tim nodded. 

“Cool. I didn’t want to make those boring plans anyway.” Melanie stood up, dragging over a beanbag to squish against Tim’s. She wriggled in next to him, neatly taking the book out of his hands and flipping it open to the first page. “If I’m going to be honest, I was actually a huge Anti-Fan of Twilight when I was a kid. I did totally have a crush on Kristen Stewart, though. I want to see if the book’s as bad as I remember it being, or if it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I mean, I thought it was the devil’s literature when I was twelve, so probably not.”

Tim, very subtly, moved closer to her. His hand drifted over to her, large and calloused and gaunt, and Melanie let him lay it on her wrist, right over the angry red cut left from the fishing wire. He squeezed tightly, almost painfully. Melanie let him. 

“I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd had reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this…”

With one hand, she typed out a message to Basira. 

**Melanie:** Tim can’t be left alone update me on the decision

She responded immediately. 

**Basira:** That’s inconvenient considering the fact that we still don’t know what the FUCK happened to you guys

**Melanie:** Found him buried alive in the bottom of the coffin. There was screaming. 

**Basira:** Shit. 

Yeah, Melanie wouldn’t know what to say either. She put the phone down, focusing on reading out the objectively terrible novel. Tim kept his hand on her wrist, never moving it. 

It took almost twenty minutes, at which point Melanie’s throat was growing hoarse, before her phone buzzed again. She surreptitiously checked it as she read out the very dramatic romance story of their generation.

**Basira:** Martin is going to update Daisy (dunno why I can’t update Daisy but that’s whatever I guess it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t love me anymore idc) and handle Peter Lukas. Sasha’s going to investigate to see who those delivery men were and if they’re dangerous or what their connection to Orsinov was. I’m going to see if there’s a process for un-declaring someone dead and dealing with the malnutrition etc. Sasha’s still got all his shit so he’s going to stay with her. Jon’s going to hit up our contacts with ur gf and Gerry to try and see what happened. We think you should go talk to Douchard. 

**Melanie:** give me the worst job???

**Basira:** Ppl who dont show up to planning sessions get worst job yea. And don’t whine you guys are like narrative foils or w/e.

...disturbing that people thought that, but okay! 

“They deciding what to do with me?”

Melanie startled, and saw that Tim was staring at her phone too. His jaw was tightly clenched, a muscle jumping, as Melanie slowly lowered the book.

“Yeah,” Melanie said slowly. “There’s some logistical stuff. Don’t worry about it, we’re handling it. Just relax for right now.” She settled back in her beanbag, picking up the book again. “Don’t worry about your stuff, Sasha kept hold of it.” Tim’s will had left everything to her - literally, literally everything in his life, all of his money and possessions and, strangely enough, three properties in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Sasha had bemoaned what she was supposed to do with the ridiculous quantity of guns and weapons, but they had already chatted about checking out the properties and seeing if she could rent them out as a side hustle. “You’re probably going home with her today. Honestly, don’t tell her I said this, but you can probably stay with her as long as -”

“I’m not staying with her,” Tim blurted, before clenching his jaw shut again. 

Melanie blinked at him. “Isn’t she your…” Melanie struggled silently for a second. Sasha had been recalcitrant, but after a few drinks she had admitted that she and Tim had definitely been in love with each other, but had never quite confessed or gotten together - unwilling, as always, to take that step. “...you know?”

Almost too late, Melanie realized that Tim was shaking again, breath growing labored. She slid her hand down his wrist until she was clasping his hand, squeezing it tightly. After a labored breath, he squeezed back. She heard his breath settle down, feeling his heartbeat thump against her thumb. 

“No Sasha?” 

Tim shook his head. 

“Jon’s place is big.” Out of a niggling suspicion, she said, “Three people live there, and a demon cat. They have a spare bedroom. It’d be loud.”

He untensed, but still shook his head. Melanie, despite her wishes, felt herself hurtled ruthlessly to a conclusion like a nine year old boy’s spitball in a slingshot. It would be the right thing to do. It might be the only thing to do. There were at least three other people in the Archives who made more sense, not including just living at the Archives. Although, to be fair, who the fuck would ever voluntarily do that.

...Melanie did not want to have her zombie arch-nemesis live in her flat. 

“You want to stay with me?”

Tim didn’t move, jaw clenched tightly. 

Nothing for it. Melanie sighed, snuggling back in the beanbag, and with slow deliberation she pressed her shoulder up against his. “That’s too bad. I never really feel safe in my flat. I know the crime statistics about single women who live alone in London. I’d feel a lot better with you with me, but...oh, whatever. I’ll just buy some pepper spray.”

“You are so transparent,” Tim said hoarsely. 

“Is the blatant appeal to your martyr complex working?”

He didn’t say anything, so she had to assume that it was, and they went back to the book. 

They didn’t stay for much longer after that. After about thirty minutes Tim abruptly remembered that he hadn’t eaten in six months, so they finally put the book down and Melanie guided him towards the kitchenette so she could make one of those little organic, no preservatives instant packets of oatmeal that Sasha liked because she was a freak of nature. Melanie optimistically hoped that they would be familiar and comforting, while also being easy to digest on a stomach that hadn’t eaten anything in  _ six months _ . 

Basira had her work cut out for her trying to figure out what the fuck was probably going on with his body. He still couldn’t really walk, forcing Melanie to loop her arm through his and help keep him upright. His leg strength was the issue, but his balance was shit too. He’d need a walker or a cane, at least for a while. 

The room fell extremely obviously and gratuitously silent the minute they walked back into the cowpen. Basira made interpretive facial expressions as Sasha’s face crumpled. She stepped forward, clearly intending on helping him, but Melanie made a hopefully interpretable facial expression and she backed off. Melanie carefully deposited Tim at Martin’s desk, which was closest to the kitchenette, and slowly let go. He let her, slumping against the desk instead, and Melanie quickly walked the few steps into the kitchenette to tear open a pack of instant oatmeal with her teeth and dump it in one of their bowls, throwing in water and sticking it into the microwave. 

Instantly, Basira was at her elbow, looking extremely stressed. She had been stressed for months, and this seemed to be putting the woman over the edge. Melanie had the sense that Basira had been repressing every ounce of emotion she had ever had for thirty three years, and that they were exploding. In Basira, this meant that you could tell she was stressed, and that was about it.

“What the fuck is happening,” Basira said, crossing her arms. Her eyebrow twitched. “I’m not even - I’m not even going to ask the  _ thousand  _ questions I have about the fucking Wonder Woman stunt you just pulled.”

“Rude. I’ve never done anything heroic in my life.”

Basira scoffed, which - double rude. “Whatever. Stop forcing us to make plans without you, we waste too much time arguing.” Before Melanie could think through the implications of  _ that  _ statement, she continued, “Sasha wants to take him home now, she wants him to recuperate at her place for as long as possible.”

Melanie winced. “About that.”

The microwave dinged and she shortly explained the situation to Basira, who seemed more and more incredulous as Melanie took out the bowl and stirred it a little. 

“You’re telling me,” she said slowly, after Melanie’s embarrassed explanation, “that Timothy “That Pig Stoker” Stoker can’t even handle being in a different  _ room  _ than you?”

Melanie shrugged miserably. “We trauma bonded?”

“Your team therapist schtick’s going too far,” Basira said flatly. 

“What does  _ that  _ mean!”

Somehow, Melanie had the feeling that her life was about to get exciting again. 

But Tim’s hands shook as he took the plastic bowl, and when he very slowly ate the oatmeal something strange and foreign bloomed in his face, and Melanie knew that she was done for. She knew that she would do it a thousand times, a million times, forever, because that cold hard stone of pain and grief lightened for the first time in six months. 

And Melanie felt free - as if some part of her soul had been locked in there with Tim, and it had only just been let loose. 

  
  
  


Melanie was quickly beginning to realize that the Archives were useless without her. 

There was a natural problem when they all needed to talk about their plans with her, but they all wanted to do it behind Tim’s back, but every time Melanie tried to duck away for five minutes to plot Tim started moping and panicking. On the flip side, Tim was definitely avoiding Sasha, for reasons nobody knew or wanted to find out. When Basira had pulled Sasha aside and broke it to her that her zombie boyfriend was definitely avoiding her, she had reacted with complete stoicism and a blasé reaction, which meant that she was crying very deeply about it on the inside. 

The only upside of this was that this was the perfect excuse for Melanie to take that vacation she’d been threatening to take for months. With all of her attention focused on making sure Tim didn’t collapse into an inanimate pile of bones, there wasn’t much she could do at the office. Melanie told everyone goodbye, told them to figure everything out without her, and bundled her and Tim into a cab back home. She had the feeling he wouldn’t appreciate the Underground. 

Her flat was...not interesting. It was her flat. She liked it. The furniture wasn’t decrepit but it wasn’t nice. Most of it was from IKEA. It was small - not a shoebox, but London small - and it was really just a studio. Her bed was off in a nook in the side, so at least Tim wouldn’t be watching her sleep the entire time, but…

“I’ll pull out the sofa,” Melanie said awkwardly, deciding to ignore the fact that it was three pm. “Want some TV?”

Tim nodded, then hesitated. “...is there more Game of Thrones? I just got to Season 7 episode 4 yester - last time…”

“Oh, honey,” Melanie said sympathetically. “The Season 7 finale was atrocious.”

Something deeply distressing seemed to occur to Tim. “I don’t even know who won the Superbowl.”

“You are my arch-nemesis and I hate you.”

But they watched Game of Thrones anyway, sitting on her couch, shoulders pressed up against each other. They even watched the stupid Superbowl. 

After that, Melanie forced him to watch Kitchen Nightmares American with her, because her kindness towards the torture victim could only go so far. 

In the end, Melanie didn’t even make it to her bed - they fell asleep together on the pulled out couch, Tim next to her, halfway through the Terminator. His favorite movie was Fight Club, but hers was Terminator, and it turned out that he liked it too. It was the kind of thing she had never known about him - that, if she had made different choices, she would have never found out. By mutual consensus, they kept every light in the flat on. 

Melanie fell asleep trying very, very hard not to think about a world where she had made a sane and rational choice and had not let go of the line. She tried very hard not to think about what would have happened if Jon hadn’t fallen in, or if Jon hadn’t somehow known where Tim was. If Melanie hadn’t been able to find their exit and they had existed for the rest of time, the endless spinning of eternity, locked in hell. 

Two hours later, Tim screamed himself awake before falling back asleep. Three hours after that it happened again, and then another hour after that. After the third time Melanie was ready to go sleep in her own bed with a pair of earplugs, but something about the way that Tim physically shook stopped her short. On a hunch, remembering the way Tim had been leaning against her, she blearily moved closer and moved his arm so it was lying over her shoulders, a bit of pressure bearing down on her. Half-asleep, Tim moved closer to her too, until he was lying on her just a little. 

He slept through the night after that. Melanie silently apologized to Sasha.

The next morning, both she and Tim had reached a silent agreement not to talk about it, and Melanie made oatmeal for Tim and gave it to him on the couch before cracking her own eggs into her pan and shoving them around with a spatula. With her other hand, she called Jon. 

He picked up immediately, the nerd. “Melanie? How’s Tim?”

“Well, his taste in cinema is shit,” Melanie said loudly. From where he was eating on the couch watching Sky Kids TV, Tim gave her the finger. “But he’s hanging in there. I’m going to be ‘working from home’, by the way.”

“Sure, I’ll fudge your timesheet.” This was why Jon was secretly a good boss. “I’ll give you a call each day with updates. Everyone’s all hands on deck for this one...or mostly everyone, you know.” 

“I’m sorry,” Melanie said quietly. “I know you miss her.”

“She’s not even - she won’t even talk to me.” Jon sighed, brittle and thin. “Never mind about that. How are you holding up? You were solidly in hell for about two hours. Fuck you for pulling that on me, by the way.”

“Fuck you for falling into the pit,” Melanie said cheerfully. 

“I saw a  _ spider  _ -”

“I’m fine,” Melanie said. And she was: a bandage was wrapped around the circular cut on her arm, she had taken a shower, and she had gotten some very shitty rest. Honestly, the worst she felt now was tired and sore. “At this point I’m just looking forward to my vacation. Keep me updated, okay? Tell Georgie I might not be accessible for a bit.”

“Understood. Good luck.” Jon paused a beat. “We actually caught footage of the whole drama, so should I send it to you for editing and production?”

“Oh  _ fuck  _ yeah!”

She hung up the phone, glancing backwards only to see Tim’s ashen face. 

“Need the wastebasket again?”

But Tim just shook his head. “Is Tonner…?”

Melanie stared at him blankly before abruptly remembering. “Oh! Oh, no, she’s alive. She just...uh, got transferred. And then stopped talking to us. We think Peter Lukas poached her to be his PA, but we also think she’s on an infiltration and assasination mission, so we don’t really know.”

“Who the fuck is Peter Lukas.”

Melanie explained over her cooking eggs, making herself a cup of strong tea and Tim a very watery and weak tea for him to slowly sip, and caught him up on the ridiculousness of the last six months. 

She took as long as she wanted - gloriously, she had nothing to do. 

Working from home, of course, meant not working at all in the comfort of your own home. Elias had never let them do it, and they tried not to abuse it now in case Peter Lukas noticed or something, but they all had the vague impression that Daisy was keeping that kind of thing from himi. 

“Wait,” Tim said eventually, as Melanie went into exhaustive detail over The Little Soap Opera They Call a Demon Workplace, “Basira and Daisy  _ weren’t  _ fucking?”

“I know!” Melanie screamed, making Tim wince. She guiltily lowered her voice. “I know! But apparently they were still in the  _ pining  _ stage.” She glared accusingly at him. “Like you and Sasha, apparently.” Tim winced again, and she tactfully moved on. “After Daisy took the new position, Basira totally emotionally lost it. It was like the worst break-up of all time, or Basira took it that way.”

“I don’t get it,” Tim said. “All she did was change jobs. You hang out for two hours every day after work.”

But Melanie just shook her head. “She’s been no contact, not with anyone. She doesn’t respond to texts. She doesn’t open her door for Jon  _ or  _ Basira.” Melanie was not privileged with the holy grail - Daisy’s address - which she wasn’t bitter about. “Daisy completely ghosted all of us, and she even avoids us at work. I don’t blame Basira, honestly. If Georgie dropped me no contact and no explanation I’d be heartbroken.”

Tim grunted, slowly sipping at his tea. Maybe he didn’t care about the lesbian love drama, but it was honestly all Melanie had going on in her life, so whatever. 

They relaxed the rest of the day, doing nothing but lying on the messy pull-out bed and watching shit telly. There was a brief issue when Melanie wanted to run down to the corner store and pick up some wine, but Tim almost had a breakdown at the thought of being left alone in a single room, and he couldn’t exactly walk with her down the street. 

Melanie gently tried to talk to him about a cane or a walker, but when that just seemed to panic him more she dropped the issue. They spent that night watching Melanie’s favorite gay romcoms, because she refused to watch regular romcoms and she still resented Tim deeply. 

She ended up having to pause  _ But I’m A Cheerleader  _ when Tim abruptly burst into severe, deep, and ugly tears in the middle of the intervention scene. It wasn’t his panicked crying, which Melanie was already beginning to recognize - it was deeper, a more profound kind of pain. Desperate and sad. 

“It’s like rehab, honey,” Megan’s Mom was saying on-screen. “Homosexuals anonymous.”

Tim kept crying. Melanie silently exited out of the movie, bringing up the Bourne Identity instead. 

“No,” Tim said, rubbing at his eyes with the Kleenex they had started keeping near the bed. “It’s okay. Go back to it.”

When the soporific narration recited the slogan for the conversion camp - ‘Straight Is Great!’ - Tim started crying again, but this time Melanie kept it on. She sat next to him, knees drawn up to her chest, sitting in a brightly lit flat, watching the movie to the soft sounds of Tim crying. 

That night, when they had finished the movie and Melanie had a twenty second crisis about whether or not she should sleep in her own bed, Tim lay on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling. He disliked blankets, and baths. Eventually Melanie silently lay down next to him, watching him turn his head fully away from her so he could stare at her tiny kitchen. He was silent for a long time. Melanie wasn’t a patient person, but she waited anyway. 

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Tim said finally. “But it sticks in my throat.” He paused again, silence stretching between them. “I - I want to say it. But I can’t.”

This, at least, was something Melanie was used to. She couldn’t count on her hands the number of closeted kids who had come out to her in various stages of drama and distress. 

“When you’re ready, I’ll listen.”

Tim was silent for a long time again, and Melanie was snuggling under the covers before he spoke again. “I’m sorry for calling you a dyke.”

Melanie jerked up, shocked. For a second she wondered why she was shocked - obviously the dude was having some life revelations - but Tim never seemed the type to apologize for  _ anything _ , ever. She had the sense that his entire self-concept was depending on him having never done anything wrong. Six months ago he had admitted that he shouldn’t have tried to kill Jon, but…

“I forgave you months ago,” Melanie said, and found to her surprise that it was true. Tim was still refusing to look at her, his silky black hair that brushed his chin lying splayed out on the pillow. “You know that, right?”

“It’s easy to forgive a dead person.”

“Then I’ll forgive you right now,” Melanie said stubbornly. “There, just did it. Go to bed.”

After five minutes, Melanie curled up tightly into a ball and Tim lying straight and stretched out next to her, he asked, “Can I…?”

Melanie sighed. “Yeah, sure. Don’t tell anyone, though.”

“I had  _ no  _ intention.”

When they fell asleep Tim was half-lying on top of her, and he slept through the night. 

  
  
  


Apparently, Elias refused to see Basira. Apparently, he would only talk to  _ her _ . 

She scowled at her laptop screen, taking a long drag from her coffee. Day four of vacation, and already she was being bothered. At least Sasha had found out who those deliverymen were - Hope & Breekon. They really did appear to just be supernatural deliverymen - which personally sounded like kind of a cool job to Melanie, but whatever - who often played courier for Nikola. Open and shut, then: one last run for their employer. In the email, Sasha also subtly probed about Tim’s memories of the Unknowing, but Melanie wasn’t about to ask anytime soon. She didn’t ask about how Tim was doing, or what was going on with him, or anything. 

God, their relationship was messed up. 

Anyway, Martin had missed Daisy but ended up talking with Peter Lukas, who appeared both like a colossal douche and also slightly intimidated by Martin. They were getting the coffin transferred to Artifact storage and the Archives were working on some  _ very  _ important investigations that they could both agree was not Peter’s business. Martin had noted, almost absentmindedly, that Peter was an exploitable weakness, and should they do anything about that? 

Meanwhile, Jon’s investigations weren’t turning up too much. Everybody was appreciative of the update on the hot gossip, and they all had many invitations to the local Fear Demon pub nights, all of which Melanie silently yearned for. The most interesting thing that Jon had found, apparently, was that Julia Montauk had noticed that Tim’s ‘scent’ had gone cold. Apparently this might mean that Tim’s monsterhood might be weakened, if not severed entirely. Which was definitely an exciting finding, as Jon had indicated with his five exclamation points. What’s the next step, Melanie?

Besides the Elias thing, Basira was curtly informing her that she was making progress on getting Tim un-deaded, but apparently this involved both Tim and his family members, all of whom were asking very loud questions about Tim. This was very annoying to Basira, who just wanted to try and find him a physical therapist. Melanie, will you deal with this already?

Melanie groaned, massaging her temples. She emailed everybody back, letting them know that she’d handle the Elias situation, that Tim was doing fine but she wasn’t asking about the Unknowing yet, that they should start planning their move against Peter but not actually go through with it yet, that the monsterhood thing is extremely interesting and that he should do some research into seeing if de-monstering is  _ possible _ , and that she and Tim will deal with his family. 

Her fingers hesitated over the keyboard. His family. Melanie didn’t know about Tim, but if she hypothetically had living parents they would be one of the first people she’d want to get in touch with. Mom, Dad, and brother, right? None of them had been in the will. Melanie had caught them at the weirdly crowded funeral - cops all turned out, or something - but she hadn’t said anything to them. Something about the awkwardly personal information she knew about Tim’s brother made it too weird. 

“Why are they all asking me to decide things for them,” Melanie groaned, running her hands over her face. “I’m on vacation. I am  _ relaxing _ .”

Tim just grunted, from where he was doing push-ups on the floor. His bodyweight exercises were fucking stupid and also insane. Melanie had watched in horror as he attempted to recreate his old bodyweight routine only to promptly almost kill himself, but he didn’t stop trying. After two days on the couch, he had turned a 180 and started spending every second he physically could working out. Melanie didn’t know how to break it to him that he couldn’t regain muscle definition when he could still barely choke down meals. 

“Downsides of being the boss.” Tim huffed as his shaking arms squeezed out another push-up before he collapsed, gasping for breath. Melanie tossed him a bottle of water, which he carefully caught out of mid-air. The show of dexterity made him grin. 

Melanie scoffed. “Jon’s the boss. I’m just team therapist these days. Or whatever. I don’t keep track.”

Tim looked at her judgmentally. 

“Okay,” Melanie amended, “Basira’s the boss.”

“Basira pretends she’s the boss,” Tim said. “It’s you. Everyone knows it. Help me up.”

That was impossible, but whatever. Melanie helped him up, fervently rejecting his terrible words, unwilling to contemplate the reality where she was in charge of other people. She wasn’t. She just wasn’t! Basira was in charge! 

Which is why every single solitary person emailed her asking her what to do. Melanie withered in defeat. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. 

Well, time to deal with one of the infinitely many downsides of command. Melanie sighed, setting her laptop aside, as Tim scrubbed a towel over his face. He started making his own oatmeal, cracking a few eggs into the pan for Melanie, who silently tried to make herself get up from the couch. She did not. Tim being able to stand unassisted was a blessing and a curse. 

“Can I ask a personal question?” 

“We are so beyond that,” Tim said, and seeing as Melanie had been forced to sit in the bathroom with him when he took his shower she had to agree. “What’s up?”

“We’re getting you legally resurrected,” Melanie said slowly, and she shared an incredulous moment with Tim over the ridiculousness of that sentence. “I figured, you know, I do the hard work of actually resurrecting you, everyone else can do the legal bits.”

“You’re a hero,” Tim panned. 

“Yeah, no problem. The problem is. Uh.” God, this was awkward. “Your parents are asking questions?”

Tim froze over the stove. The eggs bubbled in the pan. 

“Can’t we still tell them I’m dead?” Tim joked weakly. 

“Not if you want your NINO?”

The eggs spurted and crackled in the pan, but Tim no longer seemed to be paying attention. She rolled off the sofa, moving to carefully turn the heat down on the eggs and guide Tim back to the table. Then she went back to the eggs and added in her cheese, turning the heat back up. She put a bowl of the oatmeal in front of him, along with some sugar, and sat down across from him without mentioning it. 

“Your gruel, my liege.”

“Ha ha.” Tim rubbed at his face with his left hand as he picked up the spoon, taking a second to force his hand to stop shaking before he carefully dipped the spoon in the oatmeal and sipped it. His tremors were never good, but they got worse sometimes. “Sorry.”

Sorry about the panic, about not being able to cook breakfast, about making her deal with his shit. He didn’t have to say it. Melanie shrugged, grinding pepper over her eggs. “You do have to deal with this, you know.”

“Sure.” Tim put the spoon down and scrubbed his face again before running his hands through his hair. “Yeah. Of Course.”

It was a new nervous habit - his hair was, if not long, then certainly floppy, and if he left it down then it brushed his cheeks. Melanie had asked him if he wanted her to cut it, trim it back to his usual gelled, somewhat spiky military cut, but he had refused. She settled for teaching him how to actually take care of it and helping him brush it. It matched his new clothing, somehow - Georgie had dropped by with kisses and a big shopping bag full of brand new clothing that fit Tim perfectly, and now he was wearing a light over-long jumper and sweatpants. 

“I’ll handle it.”

“Sure,” said Melanie, who was uncertain that Tim was capable of handling anything more taxing than dressing himself right now. “Want to watch Steven Universe?”

“God, please.”

Basira texted her halfway through the day, telling her that she was scheduling Melanie an appointment to visit Elias in two days, on Sunday. Melanie quite severely did not want to be visiting Elias, and she sent back very many frowny faces. 

**Melanie:** if i need to go have a silence of the lambs moment we need someone here to watch tim or he starts tearing up the wallpaper :/  
**Basira:** we need men in our lives who are not children

**Melanie:** Don’t infantilize them, they’re grown adults. They’re just dumb grown adults.

That night, Tim paused his movie and told her about his mother, his father, and Danny. 

It took a few hours. Melanie mostly just listened, and nodded at the right moments, and grimaced at the cues. They sat next to each other on the sofa, which they had stopped folding back in and just kept completely folded out, shoulders pressed against each other, like lightning rods grounding them back to earth. 

At a certain point, Tim seemed to lose steam and grow a little self-conscious, scratching at the back of his neck. “It feels stupid to complain about this to an orphan.”

“Nah, you’re allowed.” Melanie shrugged uncomfortably. “Guys who avenge my dads for me get to complain that their dad worked too much. Also, like, speaking as the most fake therapist you’ve ever seen in your life, your brother is a narcissist and probably a sociopath.”

“It wasn’t just to avenge you,” Tim said awkwardly. He stopped, then started again. “I wasn’t being a hero. All of that shit I said, about wanting to protect you guys and keep you safe, that was just - that was just a rationalization. I just liked hurting people and things. I just liked destroying shit. What I did, it wasn’t for  _ you _ , it was just for me. And I was an idiot who got myself killed over it. And now you’re cooking my food for me like you’re my wife or something.”

“Wow,” Melanie said, impressed. She hugged her throw pillow, fighting her sleepiness. “You’ve been thinking about this, huh?”

“I had six months to think about nothing else,” Tim said glumly, bunching his fingers in the comforter before carefully releasing it. “There was - there was a lot of self-reflection, Mel.” He lowered his voice. “You’re supposed to repent in Hell. Then you’d go to Heaven. But I repented, and repented, and repented, and nothing happened.”

“It wasn’t hell,” Melanie repeated, for the thousandth time. Tim wouldn’t let up on that: that it was Hell, that he was being punished, that he had deserved it. Melanie wasn’t sure that there was a crime bad enough to be stuck in dirt for the rest of eternity. Maybe Hitler? “God doesn’t send people to hell for trying to do the right thing. Actually, please just abandon this entire idea that everything that happens to you is because you deserved it. That’s ridiculous.” 

“I was a  _ bad person _ , Melanie,” Tim burst out, and Melanie knew that this had been bothering him more than anything else. “Everything I did, I said it was okay because I was a good person doing the right thing. But I wasn’t. I was a bad person, a fucking monster, and everything I did was just - evil, it was all just so I could hunt. I kept on  _ saying  _ that my methods didn’t matter so long as I saved innocent people, but then I tried to  _ kill  _ innocent people, and -”

“Your black and white thinking is out of control,” Melanie said severely, and Tim shut up. “I’m giving you my CBT workbooks. Maybe the issue wasn’t that you thought you were a good person when you were secretly bad, Tim. Maybe the issue was that you think there’s such a thing as - as good and bad people. Like the world’s divided up into the virtuous and the sinners. It’s all just people, dude! We all do both good and bad things. It’s the freaking human condition.”

“I’m a literal monster,” Tim panned. “How can anything I do be good?”

“That’s why you’re sitting here trying to convince me that your martyr habit is because you’re secretly a jerk,” Melanie said severely. “You totally tied yourself to the Institute to protect Sasha because you just love kicking puppies so much. Is it so hard to believe that, for all of the bad shit you’ve done, you’re capable of good, too?”

Tim was quiet for a long moment, as if he was afraid what the answer would be. Finally, he said, “I’ll call my parents tomorrow.”

And, to Melanie’s surprise, he did. The conversation was in Korean, and Melanie politely pretended she couldn’t hear a word, but she guessed he was probably telling them the cover story. Kidnapped gang members out for revenge against a heroic bust, just escaped, staying with an...ugh...old girlfriend. There was no crying or emotion on his part - just a dull exhaustion. When he hung up he stared blankly at the phone for a minute, and Melanie silently wondered if she was supposed to fix this. 

She couldn’t, so they watched more cartoons. 

The rest of the day for Tim was spent frantically working out, or reading the CBT workbooks Melanie dumped on his lap. On Melanie’s part, she fielded her co-worker’s updates and started editing her footage. She had announced that the show was going on a break this week because she was rehabilitating their new zombie, and everybody in the comments was begging for an interview with That Pig Stoker. 

Melanie’s fingers halted over the keyboard. Tim  _ did  _ love attention…

It was a thought, one worth investigating later. In the meantime, she answered her patreon questions about how she had escaped the clutches of the Buried (Called it a pussy and walked out), how she had managed to manifest the Spiral in the subterranean claustrophobic fear domain (Called it a pussy), or what her favorite food was (tacos). 

On Sunday there was a knock on the door. Tim almost jumped out of his skin from where he was sitting at the kitchen table filling out her CBT workbooks. Melanie sighed and finished slipping on her trainers, grabbing her purse. 

“So, fun surprise, I totally decided not to tell you about something until just now because I knew you’d freak out,” Melanie said, already freaking him out. “I have to go out for a few hours. I’ll be back super quick, I promise.”

“I’ll go with you,” Tim said quickly, almost desperately. “I can walk a little, it’s -”

“It’s to the prison.” Tim stopped short at that, obviously confused. “Remember how we nailed Elias on tax fraud because he pissed us off? Yeah, I gotta talk to him. Sorry.” At Tim’s desolate face, she really did feel bad. “Bright side is, I got you a ba - uh, I invited a friend over to keep you company!”

Tim opened his mouth, clearly about to say ‘I don’t need a babysitter’, before obviously remembering that he did and closing it again. “Please don’t go,” he said, almost weakly. 

As  _ great  _ as it was to finally feel extremely needed and validated in a relationship, it was also a little uncomfortable and a lot of responsibility. Not his fault! But Melanie would be very glad when Tim went a little bit back to normal. 

Would she miss this, a quiet week spent doing nothing else but silently being close to each other and talking for long hours stretching into the night about their fears and traumas? No responsibilities, nothing to do and nowhere to go, just each other in this fragile bubble that seemed so impenetrable. 

Then Melanie decided that she totally wouldn’t miss it at all and that Tim was going to go back to his regular annoying self in two weeks max, and that nothing he’d experienced would cause life-long scarring or anything. The person at the door knocked again, more insistently, and Melanie flashed Tim a smile and a thumbs-up before shrugging on her purse and opening the door. 

Jon stood on the other side, looking happy to see her. Melanie was also happy to see a human being who was not Tim, and she afforded him a quick hug before stepping back and allowing him inside. 

“Nice to see you, Jon!” Melanie said loudly. “How’s Georgie? Is she dying of loneliness without me?”

“Last time I checked she wasn’t the one who showed up at my house whenever she’s on a trip and moped into all of my pillows, but sure,” Jon said, arching an eyebrow. He looked over her studio flat, obviously thinking too many derogatory things about it for a guy who didn’t even pay rent on his own place, before his eyes rested on Tim. Tim scowled, hunching over the table. “Hullo, Tim. How are you doing?”

Tim didn’t say anything, bending himself over the workbook and ignoring him. 

Jon glanced down at Melanie, obviously concerned. “Has he started talking yet?” He whispered. 

“Uh - yeah, obviously, dude’s a chatterbox.” Melanie raised her voice. “Tim, don’t bully Jon when I’m out, okay? He’s delicate.”

Tim grunted again. Melanie couldn’t tell if he was mad at her or if he just genuinely felt uncomfortable talking in front of people. 

Oh, well. Nothing she could do. Melanie sighed, holding out her hand and letting Jon drop the keys to Georgie’s car in her palm. “I’ll be back in three hours. That’s three pm. At three pm, I will be right here, back in this flat. Try not to kill each other until then.”

“I know how time works, Melanie,” Jon said, affronted. 

But she hadn’t said it for him, even if Tim was still refusing to look at her. 

  
  
  
  


The prison was both terrifying and very dull, and Melanie was already drafting an angry patreon only blog post about the evils of state incarceration. If she was a real socialist then she would boycott the prison system and just murder Elias instead of throwing him in jail, but unfortunately even if Melanie didn’t believe in the prison system the prison system still believed in her. 

Seriously. There was no way the guy was actually being rehabilitated. He was probably just being made  _ more evil _ . 

Melanie was handed off from guard to guard, walked down extremely boring yet oppressive hallways that reminded her of secondary school, passed an excessive amount of security checks, and was finally deposited in an incongruously normal room filled with folding tables and uncomfortable looking metal chairs. There was art on the walls. A few vending machines were lined up against the wall, flicking with a dim light. 

There were others in the room, men reunited with their families and talking in low voices with wives and girlfriends. Some men had young children on their lap, holding them tightly. Melanie abruptly started to feel very strongly about the prison-industrial system. She should have brought Tim here, shown him - 

Or punished him? He was punishing himself enough already. But the guy wasn’t educated on, like,  _ any  _ of the issues. He probably still believed a lot of shitty stuff. Melanie had to, like, unbrainwash him. Actually she had absolutely zero desire to do that, she’d get Basira to do it. Basira loved explaining things to people in a condescending tone. She definitely had an anti-racist and pro-socialist reading list or something. Would it be patronizing for a white lady to give him an anti-racist reading list - 

That was when she saw a short figure step away from the line and walk escorted to a table, sitting down with unassuming grace, and Melanie realized that it was Elias. He looked…

Well, he didn’t look great. No skincare routine in prison. The bags under his eyes were a little more pronounced. But Melanie walked over to him anyway, sitting down as primly as she could and keeping her purse in her lap. 

They stared at each other. Melanie had never stared at somebody she had purposefully put in prison just because he pissed her off. She didn’t know what was on her face. There was nothing on Elias’ face: at least, nothing other than the face she had always seen, that cool and impassive and always distantly amused mask. 

Melanie had a lot of strong feelings on Elias, but she did not know him very well. This was on purpose, because he was a creep. Now, seeing him so vulnerable and helpless, Melanie still did not want to know him very well, because he was a creep. 

Tim flashed through her mind, his late night confessions about the things he had done and the people he had killed. Tim deserved her forgiveness, because he was willing to work for it. Melanie had the feeling that Elias neither wanted it nor was willing to work for much, much less ask it from her. But...Tim had proved more interesting than Melanie had thought he was. 

And Melanie had the feeling that Elias was far, far more interesting than she knew. 

First step in a conversation/verbal spar with Elias: never let him get the first word. “Tim’s alive,” she said bluntly. “But you always knew he wasn’t dead, didn’t you.”

“Good to see you too, Melanie,” Elias said, voice a little hoarser than it once was. “I’m doing quite well in prison, thank you for asking. I’m not angry at you for getting me arrested on tax fraud or burning down my archives, how could you say that.”

“It’s so good to see you too, Elias,” Melanie said, with faux-syrupy affection. “I actually don’t care if you’re pissy about being in prison for breaking the law. I’m so glad you aren’t angry at me, I would hate for the guy who purposefully got my friend killed to be upset. Can’t we just be friends again?”

They both laughed uproariously. 

“No, seriously,” Melanie said, wiping a tear from her eye, “I hate you so fucking much.”

“I’d be offended if you didn’t, honestly. I’m not  _ that  _ bad at my job.” Elias propped his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand, watching her through half-lidded eyes. “How’s Peter treating you?”

Melanie groaned. “He’s evil  _ and  _ incompetent. He stole Daisy, and we’re pretty sure he’s making her run half the Institute. Nobody ever sees him around, and when he does drop by he’s just super socially awkward and rude. Also we think he kills people.  _ And  _ he got rid of Taco Tuesday.”

“That idiot,” Elias hissed, with what appeared to be genuine anger. “He got rid of Taco Tuesday? There’s one bright spot in the fucking week.”

Melanie threw her hands up. “I know! Tim’s going to be crushed.” She abruptly deflated a little bit, remembering the Tim issue. “I think me and Tim are best friends now. I’m not really sure how that happened or how I feel about it.”

“Judging from how upset you were about him dying, I assumed that you considered him a friend,” Elias said, somehow sympathetically. 

“I was upset! And I do care about him, a lot.” Melanie huffed, leaning back in her chair. “Just in an...arch-nemesis kind of way. Like Naruto and Sasuke.”

Elias nodded wisely. “When Sasuke left the village Naruto had no purpose.”

“Right! Except in this case it’s like Sasuke came home and he’s a stand-up guy and pays his taxes now, and he’s feeling  _ really bad  _ about the Chidori thing, and Naruto’s forgiven him about the Chidori thing but he’s afraid that he still kind of resents Sasuke over it. At the very least Naruto would need time before jumping into best friend territory, right?”

“Naruto was always in a much better place mentally than Sasuke, despite being hated and despised by the entire village for being a jinchuuriki,” Elias pointed out. “Maybe Naruto recognized in Sasuke that he had pain like Naruto had once had, and Naruto resolved to help Sasuke through that pain because he knew that he would have wanted someone to be there for him. Maybe it was never really about Sasuke at all - just Naruto, and how it was part of his Ninja Way to help others who needed it because he found it integral to being a good person.”

“I think Naruto’s ninja way should have prioritized self-care,” Melanie grumbled. 

“You made the resolution to take care of your friends a long time ago, Melanie,” Elias said, blinking long and slow at her. “You’ve been feeling stretched thin and upset these past six months because your friends have been hurting or dead and you haven’t been able to help them. But when you are put in a position to help someone, you’re afraid. Why is that?”

“Are you reading my mind again?”

“It makes conversations much more entertaining,” Elias said, pseudo-apologetically. 

“Whatever.” Melanie sighed again, trying not to think too hard about how she was having this conversation with  _ Elias  _ of all people. “I guess I’m just afraid I’ll fuck this up. I’m not a - nice or nurturing person. Sasha’s all...straight girl who’ll be your mom _ and  _ fuck you, she’d be so much better at this than me. Plus she’s  _ literally  _ in love with him. Why isn’t he latching on to her?”

“I think you just answered your own question.”

Melanie blinked. “Fuck, I did.” She squinted at Elias judgmentally. “Why are you giving me a therapy appointment from a literal prison. I’m not here to talk about this! I wanted to ask you about the coffin thing -”

“Tim blew up Nikola and then got himself eaten by the coffin, which was then discovered six months later by Hope & Breekon before being delivered to you. I knew all of this and did nothing about it because I thought it was funny.” 

“ - okay, that answers that question. Also I hate you.” Back on track, Melanie, back on track. “Do you actually  _ want  _ Peter Lukas running the place, or are you going to help us get rid of him?”

“Peter? Oh, god no, I hate the man. Made a bet, lost a bet, made another bet. I need less schemes, honestly.” Elias sighed melodramatically, leaning back in his chair. “The man is obsessed with loneliness and isolation. He thinks everybody should do it. Something about growing up with eight siblings that just made him  _ hate  _ people. To make matters worse, he’s rather under the impression that I’m somebody I’m not, and he’s quite annoying about it.”

“Have you considered not lying to him?”

“Nope.” Elias drummed his fingers against the table in thought. “The term of the agreement was eight months maximum, so I’ll have to break out of here in two months at least. More’s the pity. I was enjoying the quiet.”

“You want to say that a little louder, mate?”

“Also no.” Elias slanted her a mischievous glance, and Melanie knew that a plan was forming in his evil and pointy little mind. “Do you want to play a game, Melanie?”

“Not really.”

“Glad you agreed. The terms are this: if you manage to depose Peter and get me booted as Director of the Institute, I won’t contest it once I break out of here.” He smiled a little wider. “Seeing as I accidentally rounded up London’s most vicious gang of little queer sociopaths, I have full faith in your ability to do it.”

“That’s what you get for targeting mean little gay orphans,” Melanie said automatically, before the rest of his sentence caught up with her. “And what if we can’t?”

“Then I’ll get rid of him myself once I’m out of here and you’ll have to deal with me for...the rest of your contract, so basically either my natural life or once I get tired of you.” Elias’ eye twitched. “Seeing as I’m already quite tired of you, who knows how long that will be, but you get the picture. If you - wait.” Elias stopped short, and Melanie knew without a doubt that he was reading her mind. “You’re fucking with me. You don’t  _ want  _ to quit?”

Melanie shrugged helplessly. “The benefits are good and I don’t feel like getting a real job? You know, with the recession and everything, I’m not sure how realistic it is to work in filmmaking full time. Doing it as a side hustle and making money from my Patreon’s working pretty well for me, actually. The job’s weirdly dangerous, but I figure that’s at least a little worth it.”

Elias’ eye twitched again. “Okay. Seeing as there’s no doubt that Sasha and Tim want to quit, I’ll let them go. That works for you?”

“Great, whatever.” Melanie leaned forward, eyes glinting, and Elias leaned forward too. “What if I just yell now that you’re planning to escape?”

“I own this prison,” Elias said, pseudo-apologetically. “Perks of being a mind reader. Nice try, though.”

“Then how about this,” Melanie said, and she abruptly stuck her hand out. “No matter the result. We kick you out, you take it over, whatever. Can we just call a truce? No more stupid fighting or petty backstabs? You’re a royal cunt but so long as you don’t actually hurt my friends I don’t care what you do. And so long as I don’t set fire to your Archives or get you sent to prison, you don’t care what  _ I  _ do. But I wouldn’t  _ do  _ that shit if you didn’t fuck with my friends. It’s this stupid cycle of making each other miserable. Let’s just cut it out.”

Elias eyed her hand suspiciously, as if it would bite. “That takes the stakes out of the game quite a bit, doesn’t it?” His eyes glinted. “I could tell you about the ritual of the Dark -”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” They still had stakes, seeing as Melanie severely no longer wanted to be trapped in a blood contract to the fucking Magnus Institute, but whatever. “My life isn’t a game, asshole. It’s the only one I have, and I’d rather not spend the rest of it miserable. I get that fear demons are just compulsively assholes for some reason, but can we just drop it? It’s been three years. I’m tired. It’s not worth it.”

Elias stared at her again, and Melanie let him read her mind. Let him see her sincerity. Let him see Tim’s haunted eyes, the way he vomited and panicked and shook. Let him see how she would rip him  _ apart  _ if he tried to do that to anybody else she even vaguely cared about. 

Then Elias reached out and shook her hand, with a single firm shake, before quickly releasing her. They both made a show of wiping their hands on their trousers. 

“You know, Melanie,” Elias said, almost thoughtfully, “you always were just like me.”

“Kind of insulted you think that’s a compliment.” Melanie stood up, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I’m an awesome bitch in my own way, asshole. Unfortunately, I have to leave early, because a certain  _ someone  _ is so traumatized he starts scratching at the walls if I’m gone.” She paused for a second, remembering that they technically had a truce now and she had to keep up her end of it. “Do you have any family or friends visiting you?”

“Haven’t talked to my family in thirty years,” Elias said cheerfully. 

Ugh. Great. Melanie should make less commitments. “Then I’ll be back next week,” she said, already regretting her life. “You totally owe me, though.”

“Melanie!” Elias pretended to gasp, a hand flying to his chest. “Do you actually feel  _ guilty  _ for subjecting me to the prison-industrial -”

“Obviously! Shut up! I’m going!”

And she thought mean, angry thoughts about him her entire way out, because she was uncertain about the range of his stupid mind-reading powers. Asshole. Jerk. Bitch. Ponce. 

But when she sat in Georgie’s car, spinning the keys in her hand, she thought about people she hated, and people she loved, and the messiness in between. 

  
  
  
  


“I have returned from war!”

Melanie opened her door as loudly as possible, relieved beyond all measure to be home and half-expecting to see Tim tearing out Jon’s hair in a catfight. Instead, all she saw was Jon, who was awkwardly sitting at the kitchen table leafing through one of her books somewhat judgmentally. If she craned her head, she could see Tim curled up on her bed, leafing through what looked to be...her senior year assigned Nietzche reading? How had he gotten from the CBT workbooks to the Nietzche?

At the sound of her voice, both men jumped. Jon stood up from the kitchen chair, obviously extremely relieved to see her again, as Tim looked up from his book and stared fixedly at her. He didn’t come over - just stared. 

She was used to this by now. Melanie patted Jon on the arm in a silent thanks as he bent down to whisper in her ear. 

“He didn’t say a  _ word _ . Just sat there and read. Melanie, is he…?”

“Sane?” Melanie asked, exhausted. 

Jon just looked at her somberly, something intense in his eyes and the set of his brow. Jon had always been an intense person, or at least a very overwhelming one. Melanie had the sense that even Jon was too much for Jon sometimes. “Is he alright?”

Obviously not. But that wasn’t the question Jon was asking. Melanie didn’t know what to say, so she just shrugged helplessly, and Jon nodded as if that was an answer. 

“Are you coming back to work tomorrow? You don’t have to, but I don’t know how long you can stay away without Lukas finding out.”

Melanie hesitated, and she glanced towards Tim, who was doing his best to ignore them both. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He gave her another hug, said a cheerful goodbye to an unresponsive Tim, and Melanie threw the keys to the car at him before he left. 

She waited a few minutes, setting her purse down and stuffing some food from the fridge in her mouth, before walking over to her bed and sitting down next to him. She offered him an unwrapped granola bar, which he cautiously took and nibbled on. 

“Wanna talk about it?”

Tim grunted around the granola bar, and Melanie raised an eyebrow at him until he swallowed. “You know Nietzche was the one who said ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’?”

Melanie slotted him an unimpressed look. “He also called women’s god’s second mistake.”

Tim hesitated for just a second too long, and Melanie slapped him as lightly as she could on the arm. He hissed anyway, rubbing it slightly, and Melanie felt bad for just a second before his expression darkened. 

“He pities me,” Tim said lowly. “He thinks I’m fragile.”

To be fair, these days Tim more closely resembled the skeletons from that Skeleton Dance video than a human being. He was gaunt, with hollow cheeks that somehow made his eyes seem large, and although he tried to drown his skinniness in large jumpers and thick jeans it was impossible to miss how delicate and thin his wrists and ankles were. He was skinnier even than  _ Jon _ , which was dead impressive. 

Somehow Melanie was under the impression that if she told him that his fragile masculinity would never recover. Half of Tim’s self-concept relied on being able to beat up anybody in the room, which was yet another reason why she was contemptuous of men. Melanie wondered if it was humiliating, to be suddenly small and weak. 

Maybe now Tim understood how it felt when he had threatened her, loomed over her and grabbed the arms of her chair and called her a bitch. Jon had done his own part to make Tim feel helpless and scared that day, and the experience was so scarring for him that he had spent the next few months actively trying to murder him. Tim couldn’t do that now, even if he wanted to. Melanie didn’t know if he wanted to. 

Was this supposed to feel good? That her arch-nemesis was taken down a peg? It really didn’t. It was just kind of a bad situation all around. 

Probably the best thing to do here was try to salvage his self-esteem and protect that fragile male ego. Instead, Melanie said, “Yeah, you’re kind of pathetic. Wanna get drunk about it?”

Tim stared at her for a long second before saying, “God yeah.”

So that’s how Melanie and Tim did the most adventurous thing they had done in a week and walked down the street to the local pub. Tim had rejected any kind of mobility device, and he also refused to lean on Melanie, so they settled for just walking extremely slowly down the sidewalk as Melanie lingered closely by his side. They occasionally had to stop so Tim could grip her shoulder and breathe - in through his nose, out through his mouth. Somehow, he could even breathe like he wanted to commit murder. 

Then they got drunk. 

In Melanie’s defense, she was fairly sure that there was no other rational course of action when you’ve spent the last week babysitting your arch-nemesis and listening to him have his sexuality crisis only to have an actual conversation with Elias. Even seeing Elias’ smug little face was enough to make her pop open a bottle, much less striking a deal with him that somehow implied she and Elias were similar people.

So they hugged a corner booth and ordered as many pints as they could feasibly handle. For Melanie, this was four (Scottish), and for Tim this was two (walking skeleton). He obviously resented this, bitching about how he wouldn’t even be able to get drunk on one pint. 

Tim had underestimated what six weeks and losing about more than seven stone did to your alcohol tolerance. 

“You know what I think?” Tim said angrily, slamming his pint on the stained wood. It was only four, and the bar was still sparsely populated, but Melanie knew that once work got out and salarymen stumbled home then it would quickly fill up. “I think it’s all fuckin’ pointless.”

“Big mood,” Melanie said, sipping on her second drink. God, she had needed this. 

“I think life is just - you just are born, and then you just die!” Tim waved his hands around demonstratively in a way that definitely made sense to him. “And you kill a lot of people in between!”

“I’ve never killed people,” Melanie pointed out.

“That’s because you’re - you’re…” Tim visibly struggled for the word before snapping his fingers. “You’re a good person.”

“I’m not.”

“You are! You’re all…” Tim gestured vaguely to her. “Soft.” He paused a beat, thankfully saving Melanie from having to reply to that. “Do other people really not kill people?”

“I’ve gone my entire life without killing anybody.”

Tim squinted at her, as if he was trying to incorporate this into his worldview. “Really? Nobody? I thought - you know, everybody wants to. Everybody  _ would _ . It’s just, you know, laws stopping ‘em. Base instincts. Civilization n’ rules n’ being...uh, beta males, you know.” Tim looked contemplative for a second, as if what he was saying made any sense. “I guess cuz you’re a woman you don’t get it. Men love killing people, Mels.”

“That’s just you.”

“All men are inherently violent,” Tim said, as if this was wise. “They just, like, restrain themselves.” 

“Uh.”

“I respect women, Melanie.”

As Tim polished off his drink, dragging his second pint over, Melanie silently resigned herself to teaching Tim feminism. Basira definitely had a reading list for  _ that _ . 

Four turned into five, and people began trickling in through the door. Laughing, joking, loosening ties or rolling up sleeves. Just going for a drink after a long day at work. Melanie and Tim watched them silently, both quietly jealous. Melanie kept an eye out for any off-duty cops, since  _ that  _ was a can of worms she had no desire to open, but as the noise and chaos of the pub increased she saw Tim withdraw more into himself. 

“We can head out,” Melanie said quietly. 

Tim was silent, taking a long drag of his pint again. She didn’t miss how he almost gagged on it - the guy had barely worked up to eating solid foods, and beer didn’t always sit easy on the stomach. He was going to be throwing up at the end of the night guaranteed. Maybe this was a bad -

“I don’t think any of this matters,” Tim said abruptly. 

This wasn’t good. 

“I have a thesis, okay? I have a thesis. I’ve been - I’ve been listening to you, because you’re smart, and you’re right, and I have a thesis.” Tim leaned forward, head lolling in a familiar drunken stumble. “You’re right. What happened to me - it wasn’t  _ God _ . God has no control over those - those Eldritch fucks. Stokers? Did you call them Stokers? Whatever. God would never let them exist, so they’re probably as strong as he is - anyway, anyway.” Melanie was impressed at these mental gymnastics to incorporate alternate universe primordial malevolent forces into Christian theology. “They don’t do things for a reason. Sash n’ I saw that in the statements, they just do shit - they just do shit because they can. You just get - unlucky. You’re just unlucky, and they make your life hell. Because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Mike Crew’s interview flashed back through Melanie’s head, and she cautiously nodded. “Yeah, that’s the impression I got.”

“So what if,” Tim said, something approximating excitement building in his voice, “that’s the case with  _ everything _ ? What if God just - left us? What if he made us, saw that we were all these desperate and awful animals who kill and rape and hurt each other, and abandoned us in disgust?”

“Whuh,” Melanie said, also slightly tipsy. 

“He’s not keeping score,” Tim said, and his speech was growing faster, his eyes lighting up for the first time since he had returned, glinting with a manic light. “There’s no right or wrong or good or evil. You’re right, it’s all just people. It’s all just - savage, hedonistic, corrupt, animalistic people!”

Melanie realized with a sinking feeling in her gut that Tim hadn’t exactly gotten out of her speech what she wanted him to get out of it.

“So  _ I’ve  _ decided not to bother,” Tim said proudly, leaning back in his seat. “No more Hero. No more Dark Avenger. No more Good Guy Cop. No more martyr complex. From now on I’m just going to do whatever the fuck I want, and God’s not going to fucking judge me for it.”

“Holy shit,” Melanie said, reeling. “Did I just make you  _ more  _ evil?”

“What? What, no.” Tim raised his hand for a waiter. “Slide me a margarita, mate!” He turned back to Melanie. “Killing people, torturing them for information, stalking them, invading their privacy, planting drugs on them, manipulating them into incriminating themselves in court, blackmailing them, using my job to threaten my neighbors -”

“ _ You did all of that _ ?”

“ - is all wrong!” Tim said cheerfully. “From now on I only care about myself! And you. Oh, and the polycule or whatever you call it.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie said.

“God’s dead and we have killed him!” Tim gratefully accepted his margarita, raising it high in victory. “I’m drinking girl drinks from now on! I’m  _ bisexual _ !”

“Oh my god.”

“Hey, how do I fuck guys?” Tim asked with interest, making Melanie want to die. “I’m kind of ugly now, but guys like that, right? What is it, Grindr? Can you teach me how to use Grindr?”

“Please don’t -”

“I only really know from like, gay porn, which I somehow convinced myself every straight guy watched. Hey, you’re gay, you know gay people, right? Can you introduce me?” Tim paused a beat, clearly thinking. “Jon and Martin are definitely fa - I mean, gay guys, right? I actually always thought Jon was super hot, which was part of why I hated him so much -”

“If you’re bisexual you can say the fag word again,” Melanie said, exhausted, “but for my sake, please don’t.”

Melanie, unfortunately, did not know a lot about fucking guys, but she was willing to stay on topics that were not about the meaninglessness of human existence. She personally thought it would be a little cruel to introduce him to other gay people at this point, but she could probably show him some movies or assign him some reading that was hopefully  _ not  _ Nietzche. 

At one point Tim got up to go use the bathroom, rejecting Melanie’s help even as he obviously swayed, and Melanie was left blissfully alone to think. She really did know a lot of bisexual people - Jon, Georgie, and Gerry, just off the top of her head - so she could probably steer him that way. At least, she could if she wasn’t sure that Tim wouldn’t hit on them. Why was he trying to hit on people? Wasn’t he in love with Sasha? What was going  _ on  _ between him and Sasha?

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice another guy walking up to her table. He was her age, with sandy blonde hair and a vaguely well shaped face. There was a cluster of guys behind him, watching avidly and sipping their own pints. 

“Hey,” the guy said, “I like your shirt.”

What? Melanie looked down at her outfit. It was a green flannel layered over her Led Zeppelin band t-shirt from Aldi’s. “Thanks, Led Zep’s awesome.”

“Totally. I have, like, all their albums.”

They chatted pleasantly, yet awkwardly, for a minute. His favorite song from them was Somebody to Love, while Melanie preferred Kashmir. 

“So, uh,” the guy said finally, “can I buy you a drink, or -”

Whoops. Not just a friendly conversation at all. Melanie abruptly felt a bit embarrassed. She was  _ really  _ unused to guys hitting on her. “Uh, actually -”

“Fuck off, mate.”

Tim was back, and although he was obviously leaning on the table to stay upright his expression was - 

Well. Tim had always effortlessly been able to communicate that he was ready and willing to rip your throat out if you didn’t do what he wanted, right now. Something about being significantly muscley and carrying a gun made it easy to be intimidating. 

Now, he just kind of looked like an angry drowned rat. 

“What?” the guy asked, more surprised than intimidated. He glanced down at Melanie, all like, ‘is this guy really with you?’. 

“You heard me,” Tim said slowly, “back off or I'll make you.”

The guy stared at him in shock, before abruptly breaking into peals of laughter. His buddies behind him laughed too, almost cackling at the sight of a hundred pounds soaking wet scarecrow of a guy threatening a healthy, alive, vibrant man. 

It was obvious Tim had never been laughed at before. It was obvious that this had  _ never  _ happened to Tim, ever. Nobody since Danny had ever disregarded and mocked him, and Tim had made very sure of that. If Tim couldn’t be loved, then he would be feared. 

He seemed shocked at first, as if there was another skinny guy they could possibly be laughing at, before his expression morphed into rage. And in the dim yellow lights of the pub, lit only by swinging lights overhead, Melanie saw his dark brown eyes lighten and swirl into a sickly, pale yellow. 

Fuck. Fuck. Melanie’s heart jumped into her throat, and for just a second she was back there - back to Tim leaning over her, expression demented, ready to hurt her. Back to Jon’s haunted eyes when he told them about how Tim tried to slit his throat. 

For just a second, Melanie was scared of Tim again. 

Then Melanie remembered that she was scarier than any embarrassed, fragile idiot, and she abruptly stood up. She slid out of the booth, grabbing Tim firmly by the collar, and wasted absolutely no time in dragging him out of the pub. They had already paid their tab, and Melanie didn’t even look back as she barely kept Tim upright. 

The air was cool, and the sun was far from setting. Grey, foggy skies stretched above them, and Melanie exhaled heavily to breathe in the fresh air. As fresh as it ever got in London, anyway.

The streets were busy, everyone shrugging on jackets and walking home from work, headed for the metro or the underground. Life teemed around them, and the world spun on - no matter how much Melanie felt as if her own life had been put on hold. 

A week ago she had dived into a supernatural coffin, and a year ago she had entered into a supernatural life-time employment contract. Melanie was close personal friends with half of the demon community and her girlfriend was a wealthy collector of evil books. 

Something terrible and strange occured to Melanie: was her life not normal?

Whatever. Bigger issues right now. Melanie was completely certain that she was a completely normal person who just had a stupid life, not a strange one. She couldn’t deal with this - she had to deal with her personification of murderous anger arch-nemesis that she had rescued from a supernatural dirt coffin and who had been sleeping on her couch for the past week in a startling display of attachment. 

But when she looked at Tim, he didn’t seem angry or embarrassed. He just looked sick, thick bags under his eyes bruised purple and swaying slightly on his feet. 

He was clenching his jumper with one hand, right over his heart. “I thought it was gone…I thought I had killed it…”

“Obviously not, if you’re trying to  _ defend my honor _ against a bloke who wanted to buy me a drink!” Melanie let go of him, only to quickly grab him again when he almost collapsed. Idiot. “You’re an idiot. That wasn’t cute. I’m not your fucking girlfriend!  _ My  _ girlfriend would sic an evil book on them and that would be that.”

“Shove off,” Tim muttered. “Don’t need you making fun of me too…”

“Did  _ Sasha  _ put up with this? Because I know her, and I highly doubt she actually did -”

“I got scared! I was scared, you stupid -”

But if there was anything else he wanted to say Melanie didn’t hear it, because Tim promptly bent over and threw up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MUCH HAPPENS in this one. Warning for some slight gore and medical malpractice, along with further emphasis on internalized queerphobia.

Melanie rolled up to the Institute the next morning slightly hungover, clutching a huge thermos of coffee, with Tim in tow. She did not want any of this to be happening. 

It wasn’t even that she still couldn’t leave Tim alone. He had  _ wanted  _ to come. He had woken her up practically at the crack of dawn, bouncing around the flat and cooking breakfast for the both of them. He was cheerful, gregarious, seemingly not hungover at all, and had proudly told Melanie that they were going to the Institute together that morning - not because he couldn’t handle being in a room without her, haha! But because he had an  _ idea _ . 

“Please tell me the idea isn’t getting Jon to sleep with you,” Melanie said, exhausted beyond all measure.

“My idea is genius,” Tim bragged, somehow, as if he had something to brag about. “I’m going to solve your Peter Lukas problem, get Daisy back in the fold, un-crazy Martin, the whole bag. Trust me, it’ll go great.”

Melanie really, really shouldn’t have drunkenly told him about the deal with Elias. She had yet to tell any of the others about it, so she really didn’t know why she had told Tim, but…

He had caved and took the cane Melanie had bought for him a week ago. Which, maybe, meant something. She saw him testing it as a nightstick when it was folded up, which probably wasn’t a good sign, but she’d take what she could get.

Even worse, when Melanie opened the door to the Archives, stepping back and keeping it open for Tim, the first thing she saw was Jon rolling out of the way of a knife attack. 

Martin lunged again, and Jon quickly jumped over Basira’s desk and hid underneath it, pushing the chair away. Basira, who was sitting in the chair, didn’t seem to appreciate this, and she dived out of the way as Martin jumped onto the table. His expression seemed somewhat demented. 

“I’m just  _ saying  _ that I don’t care who goes to whose balls! I recognize her objective value in the romance genre, Martin, but it’s just not to my personal taste -”

“The height of social commentary and witty repartee isn’t to your  _ taste _ ?” Martin snarled, and drove a large combat knife down into the middle of the desk, spearing a manilla folder to the table and forcing Jon to escape his safe haven. Martin jumped down, having anticipated this move, but Martin rolled to the side and pulled a chair in front of him to act as cover. 

“I’m a big fan of Gothic literature, and you can say that they achieve similar ends -”

“You  _ dare  _ equivocate Mr. Rochester and Mr. Darcy?” Martin snarled, throwing his knife forward and solidly sinking it into the soft cushion of the rolling chair, making stuffing spurt out ripping the fabric. “Mr. Rochester doesn’t  _ respect women _ .”

“I didn’t pay any attention to the romance aspects, Martin,” Jon said, exasperated, as he shoved the chair forward and made a break for it. Martin stumbled over the chair, narrowly catching it before it plowed into him. “If the appeal for you is solely the romance of Darcy and Lizzie, then I’m not sure you can make claims that I should enjoy it solely on the social commentary appeal -”

“Lizzie and Mr. Darcy  _ was  _ social commentary,” Martin spat, shoving the chair aside as Jon made a break for it. He slipped on a loose corner of the rug, and his infinite limbs pinwheeled as he fell like a redwood tree onto the floor. Martin advanced, and Jon scrambled backwards. “Darcy’s confession scene was a stand-out feminist moment in literature and its prose was almost poetry.”

“I don’t like poetry, Martin!” Jon cried, frantic. “I’ll never like it! I don’t understand the appeal! We’ve  _ discussed  _ this!”

“You just say that because you’re a theater kid,” Martin hissed, and raised his knife into the air as Jon froze. “You’ve had bad taste for the last time, Jon!”

The creak of a door opening echoed throughout the cow pen, and Sasha poked her head out from the library, irritated. “Can you guys keep it down? I’m trying to stop the apocalypse.”

“You know who used to stop the apocalypse?” Basira said mournfully. 

“I am gone,” Melanie said, strangled, “for  _ one week  _ -”

“Wow,” Tim said, almost impressed, “you guys live like this, huh?”

It took at least another five minutes to separate Jon and Martin, not helped by the fact that Basira was too busy reading 200k slowburn fanfiction and loudly sighing to help. Tim was freaking everybody out by the fact that he was smiling, Jon was not phased at all by the murder attempt in an extremely worryingly way, and Melanie was left to wrangle Martin into his cell by herself. Tim tried to help, but Jon very quickly and very easily held him back. 

Sasha didn’t help either, but that was mostly because she seemed to be pre-occupied by what she clearly thought was more important matters. 

She ambushed Melanie in the middle of trying to confiscate Martin’s knives, easily dodging Martin’s frantic swipe. “Melanie! Thank god you’re back. We need to call a team meeting. Elias called me and he tipped me off about an imminent ritual attempt by the Fear of Darkness, which he kept on calling The Dark for some reason - it’s in only three months, we need to prepare -”

“Oh my god,” Melanie groaned, wrestling Martin into submission, “we have bigger problems, Sasha!”

Sasha’s eyes flickered to Tim, who was loudly asking a highly defensive Basira about her fanfic and very conspicuously not looking at her. “Do we?”

Okay, looked like everybody had some explaining to do. Melanie raised her voice, capturing the attention of the tumultuous room. “Family meeting! Now!”

Maybe she could run off with Georgie to France. Georgie had property in France. They could go for a romantic honeymoon, have sex on a fur rug next to a fireplace, pop open bottles of wine, have a picnic in the countryside…

Instead she was forced to somehow wrangle her stupid polycule into the library, deposit them all in their gay little beanbags, wipe clean Sasha’s meticulous notes on the whiteboard that now had a permanent spot on their rug in the corner, make sure that Martin and Jon were sitting on opposite sides of the half-circle even when  _ both  _ of them complained about it, make sure that Tim and Sasha were also sitting on opposite sides for some obscure reason, and confiscated Basira’s fanfiction. She even gave herself the talking Barker - which was literally a Barker that told you your worst fears if you opened it, but if you didn’t open it then you could just use it as a talking stick. 

Melanie practiced her calming breaths, which had really come in handy the past few days. 

“Everybody listen to this meeting and nobody interrupt,” Melanie said severely. 

Everybody nodded, except Sasha, who raised her hand immediately. The girl was the  _ literal  _ human embodiment of Hermione Granger. “Are we going to go over how to prevent the ritual? Because Elias said that the world’s going to end in a month if we don’t take a ship to Iceland -”

“Nobody cares, and use the talking Barker,” Melanie said. Sasha looked a little crushed, which actually made Melanie feel bad. Sasha had been the most useful member of the team for the past six months. “Look, we’ll get to it, okay? Honestly, I think he was just fucking with you. You’re easy to wind up.”

“Definitely fucking with you,” Tim said, shocking everybody. He had found their big cardboard box of stress balls and Happy Meal toys liberated from a garage sale, and was playing with an Infinity Cube. “Before he enabled me in committing suicide he said that the rituals were wastes of time. He’s just trying to split our attention and get us to lose the bet.”

Everybody stared at him.

Tim hunched his shoulders defensively. “What? I’m emotionally honest now. I’m, like, woke.”

“You are not and that’s not what woke means,” Melanie said, tired. Sasha was mouthing the words ‘emotionally honest’ to herself, as if she could not imagine them in context of Tim. 

As usual, even in the midst of heartbreak, Basira brought them back on track. She crossed her arms, sinking in her beanbag. “What bet.”

Melanie explained in short order, glossing over all of the points where Elias tried to draw narrative parallels between them. It was kind of a stretch, and Melanie refused to dignify it with a response. She also kept out how weirdly cordial they had been, and the fact that she had promised to see him again next week. Look, she can have her Clarisse and Hannibal moments too, okay? She’s entitled. 

Everybody stared at her blankly after she finished explaining, which she didn’t understand. She had even drawn happy little stick figures on the board, which should explain everything. 

Everybody but Sasha, who already looked thoughtful. The gears churned in her head, and Melanie saw that her fingers were itching for a pen and paper. “We don’t know anything about Peter Lukas, though. We saw him in person, like, once, and I can barely even remember what he looks like.”

“He was a bear,” Martin volunteered. “Pretty sexy.”

“Do you only like bears?” Jon asked, distressed. 

“To beat somebody you have to exploit their weaknesses. We don’t  _ know  _ his weaknesses, and we can’t get enough access to him to discover them. I’ve read him in a few statements, but those are all from the perspective of victims -”

“But he knows ours.” Tim grabbed his cane from where it was lying next to him and laboriously pulled himself up from the beanbag, walking towards the whiteboard and standing on the opposite end of it from Melanie. Sasha’s eyes darted to the cane, and his limp, but she just pressed her lips together until they whitened. “Melanie, remember what you said to me about Elias’ feelings on Peter Lukas?”

“Uh...he was upset they got rid of Taco Tuesday?”

“He worships loneliness,” Tim said, almost patiently. “He hates connections between people, hates - friendship and love. He knows, just as well as we do, that these connections are weakness.” He paused a second - not hesitant, just thoughtful. “I used to do it all the time. Threaten to catch someone’s brother on trumped up drug charges if they didn’t spill the name of their own dealer. Or, this is good, pretend that someone was resisting arrest so they’d get put in high security prisons and restrict access to family and other prisoners.”

Everybody looked either incredulous or, in the case of Sasha, extremely guilty. Melanie, who had been serving as the recipient of Tim’s compulsive need to confess his sins for the past week, was pretty sure she couldn’t be shocked by him anymore.

“So?”

“So,” Tim said deliberately, “in case you’re  _ wondering  _ why Daisy’s gone, I’ve been stuck in a coffin, Martin’s homicidal, Basira’s depressed, and Sa - that’s why. You guys are undefeatable together, but pathetic apart.”

“Sad but true,” Jon admitted. “Without affection I go insane.”

“So our interpersonal drama these past six months have been a convoluted plot by Peter Lukas to cripple us,” Sasha said thoughtfully. “I didn’t know he was that intelligent, to be honest. He seemed a little incompetent.”

“Incompetent people are the most dangerous,” Jon said seriously. 

“So what are you suggesting?” Melanie asked, uncertain if she even wanted to find out.

Tim grinned wickedly. “Couples therapy.”

Yep. She hadn’t wanted to find that out. 

Everybody stared at them both in a long moment of dull incomprehension, before devolving into chaos. 

As it turns out, nobody liked that idea. 

Martin drew his knife again, Sasha started talking loudly about the Dark Ritual or whatever in a blatant distraction, Basira grabbed the nearest book, which hilariously was still Twilight, and stuck her head in it resentfully as if she could block out everything everyone was saying. Jon was the only one who seemed to entertain the notion, glancing very obviously at Martin before looking away again, and then glancing back at him. Martin caught him looking and flashed his biggest knife at him with a dangerous look, which made Jon blush. 

Well, too bad. If they were going to all give her the responsibility of making the decisions, then they had to live with her decisions. Melanie whistled sharply, pulling everybody back to attention. 

“It’s a good plan,” Melanie said, as if she and Tim had thought this out before he pulled this on her. The worst part was, it  _ was  _ a good plan, and it fit in very nicely with Melanie’s sensibilities: that  _ everybody  _ needed therapy at  _ all  _ times, and that if they could just get the gang back together again then not even Peter Lukas would stand a chance against any of them. 

With Tim back, Melanie had realized just how fragmented and empty they had been. The dynamic was completely messed up with Daisy gone, with Basira sullen and moody, with Martin insane and Sasha throwing herself into work to avoid grieving. Tim coming back didn’t fix everything, but it made Melanie feel as if everything  _ could  _ be fixed. 

As if she could have whatever she wanted, just by wanting this. 

That optimism, that essential spark inside Melanie that firmly believed she could mold reality to her will, gave her resolve. She glanced at Tim, who just gave her a tight smile, and she knew that he had known. That he’d stand behind her, no matter what. 

“It’s a good plan,” Melanie repeated slowly, “and we’re going to do it.” When everybody started complaining again, she held up a hand, and they reluctantly quieted. “We’ve never ruined anybody’s lives divided, guys. Remember when we emotionally terrorized the Pigs?”

“Yes,” Sasha said, depressed. 

“Our best work yet,” Basira said. 

Melanie snapped her fingers. “Exactly! Three plans of action!” She made a numbered list on the board, writing in the first name. “First order of business: getting Daisy on board.”

“I’ll do it,” Basira said quickly.

But Melanie just shook her head. “Sorry, but last time you tried chasing her down she pulled a massive Harry Houdini on you.” When Jon opened his mouth, she added, “You too. We need a more neutral party. Tim and I will go. We’ll get that taken care of today. In the meantime, everybody else do some research on Peter Lukas and see if he has any loved ones we can squeeze.” At everybody’s disgusted looks, she amended, “Sasha and Jon, you guys research.”

“So have you just given up all pretense of Jon being your boss, or what?” Tim asked. 

Melanie ignored him, writing down the second item on the list. “Second order: handling whatever the fuck is going on with Jon and Martin.”

Everybody stared at the two men. Jon flushed and played with his fingers. Martin just looked zen and completely unapologetic. “I hardly see how who I stab is anybody’s business.”

“I don’t mind the stabbing,” Jon volunteered. 

“Y’all are freaks,” Tim said, impressed. “So we’re definitely taking care of that.” At everybody’s nods, Tim took the liberty of writing down the third point. “Step three, we make Dasira a thing again. Eh? Eh?”

“I have a knife you can borrow, Basira,” Martin encouraged. 

Horribly, Basira looked a little thoughtful. “How big is it? She only likes daggers.”

“My dagger selection is -”

“Step four,” Melanie said loudly, writing it down on the board, “we handle the TimSasha situat -”

“Step four, we gang up on Peter Lukas and bully him into submission!” Tim said cheerfully, effortlessly smearing his hand against the whiteboard to blur out the words. “That’s our four step plan! Great brainstorming session, everybody, let’s break!”

Everybody was eager to escape, and even when Melanie shot Sasha panicked glances she didn’t challenge Tim or fight him on the  _ blatant  _ evasion. When Melanie rounded on Tim to demand answers for his increasingly confusing displays, she saw that he barely even seemed to be paying attention to her. He was wiping the whiteboard clean with an almost manic fury, muttering under his breath as he leaned on his cane. 

“Something is wrong with you,” Melanie said bluntly, “and it is an entirely different kind of thing then what is usually wrong with you.”

“Au contraire, my good woman,” Tim said, in a mockery of a teasing tone. “I think the way I’m acting is the only rational way to act. In the midst of fear and uncertainty, we solve the problems that we can fix and we accept the unimportance of the ones that we cannot.”

Melanie squinted at him. “You’ve spent the last week crying on my couch and now you’re acting like an eight year old on pixie sticks.”

Tim turned to face her, and Melanie realized for the first time that the bags under his eyes were profoundly purple and red-rimmed, even worse than the last few days. Had he slept all last night? 

“That’s before I  _ realized _ ,” Tim said, frightening Melanie deeply. “It doesn’t matter! None of it!  _ All  _ of this is meaningless. My work, my life, my existence, my death - none of it!” He mimicked a little explosion, a ‘poof!’ out of existence. “I finally realized what you’ve been saying all along - that this is so  _ pointless  _ you might as well have fun and evade labor. You’ve always been right, Melanie, I’ve just been too stupid to see it.”

“Please don’t mistake my laziness for a philosophical position.”

“It is a new day and a new Tim,” he said firmly, and it would have been almost heartwarming if it wasn’t for how demented the guy clearly was. “The past doesn’t  _ matter _ ! Who cares about six little months buried alive in an infinity of dirt, spending every moment unable to breathe, always choking, unable to move, unable to do anything but think and ruminate and spend every second possessed by a deep desire to finally die to escape the torment, but the dirt will not even allow sleep as a reprieve -”

“Uh -”

“None of it matters!” Tim cried, throwing up his hands. “It is a new day! Let’s fix this problem, get everybody back together, boot out Peter Lukas, and spend the rest of our lives living in hedonistic mindlessness!”

“Hm,” Melanie said. “You know, I don’t think a therapist can help this.”

“There is not a therapist in the world equipped to deal with me.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that now.” Melanie thought harder about the circumstances. Really, it was either this or crippling depression, and although this was probably more annoying it was definitely a lot funnier. “Sure, go wild. Does this mean that you’re finally going to tell me what the fuck is up with you and Sasha -”

“Can’t talk, have to go buy Hawaiian shirts!”

Melanie had the sinking sense that she would have to do something to fix this. Eventually. How many problems could one person have to fix? She could barely handle her own emotional problems, much less the ones of  _ six other people _ . 

At least Jon seemed well adjusted. That was why Melanie kept Jon around: ever since that unfortunate paranoid breakdown, he’s been remarkably sane. She should probably thank him for getting his mental breakdown out of the way a year ago instead of deciding to have it in unison like everybody else did. 

Unfortunately, even if Tim Stoker refused to face his problems, that didn’t mean Melanie couldn’t. Even worse, when Tim Stoker refused to face his problems, it redirected his problems to  _ Melanie  _ instead. 

Said problem ambushed Melanie in the kitchenette, when she was blearily yet frantically brewing as much coffee as physically possible. Said problem was wearing trainers, sweatpants, and an old uni t-shirt as if it was a killer pantsuit, with a wild mane of curly brown hair tied into a high ponytail - both pretty ordinary for her. The only thing that was strange was the openly desperate expression on her face. 

“Is he sleeping enough?” Sasha James burst out. “Because he  _ really  _ doesn’t look like he’s sleeping enough. He can’t sleep with any lights on, he needs it dark.”

“What.”

Despite everything, Melanie had grown to like Sasha a lot over the past six months. She was all of the competence and intelligence of Basira, except she was actively trying to get over her sadistic streak. The most disgusting thing about her, besides the evil cop thing, was that she genuinely really enjoyed research and mysteries, and typically spent far too much time actually puzzling out the statements and interviewing the fear demons that wandered into their Archives. When they had all lost Basira to her long-overdue mental breakdown, Sasha had stepped up to the plate admirably - despite everything that she had to be going through. 

She was also a try-hard and incredibly annoying. Melanie often felt like Ron Weasley being told the correct pronunciation of ‘Leviosa’ for the fifth time.  _ Just  _ because she had red hair didn’t mean that she was the sidekick in this situation! Why was her hair color the bane of her  _ existence _ !

That was a thought that would make everybody else in the Archives but Daisy laugh at her, but whatever. Daisy understood. She had once confided that being a 1.5m, white, blonde haired blue eyed woman had traumatized her severely growing up, at which point Melanie asked if it had traumatized her to the point of being a serial killer, which made Daisy stop telling her things. She didn’t regret the question. 

“Tim’s really delicate,” Sasha continued, sending Melanie into a mental montage of pre-Coffin Tim in abject confusion. “Like, mentally. Is he eating enough? He’s a really good cook but when he gets too focused on a hu - case he forgets to eat.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie said, horrified, “you really are a mum who gives it up on the reg.”

“What does  _ that  _ -”

“Why aren’t you talking to him about this?” Melanie asked bluntly. She slammed the pod into the Keurig and pressed the start button, watching with naked longing as coffee slowly began sputtering into the cup. 

“I don’t want to push him!” Sasha bit her lip, twisting a small ring on her finger around and around. It was a nervous tic for her - Melanie often saw her playing with that ring. “Tim’s, like, you know - if you push too hard he shuts down. You have to be sneaky when you bring stuff up with him. If he’s not ready to talk about it then he’s not ready to talk about it.”

Coffee, please help her escape this conversation. “Why is this my job?”

“We have to support him and his decisions,” Sasha said heatedly. Melanie wondered belatedly if she’d been spending the last week thinking about this. If she’d been spending the last week wondering what had happened to him, and why he couldn’t even bear to look at her. “He knows what he’s doing. We just have to trust him.”

“Uh,” Melanie said, vividly flashing back to Tim throwing up outside of a pub the previous night, “yeah. Because Tim’s really historically known for his good decisions.”

“I’m not saying he’s always done the right thing.” Sasha spun her ring furiously, somehow the most anxious that Sasha had seen her in a long time. “But he deserves that trust, right? He’s my - he knows what he’s doing. I just need to, you know, make sure he’s doing the right thing. But I haven’t always been too great at that, and -”

“Because he’s not talking to you, you need me to do it.” The Keurig finished sputtering, and Melanie snatched her coffee up. “Don’t worry, I’m putting you two on the couple’s therapy docket. You, uh, clearly need it.”

Sasha sagged in relief. “Really? Do you think he’ll go for it? I think it’ll be good for him. Thanks, Melanie, you’re the best. Please just keep an eye on him, okay? He’s fragile. And I’m kind of worried that it’s impossible to truly stop being an evil fear demon and that he’s going to be forced to start hunting people down again -”

“You’re worrying too much,” Melanie said. “The only thing fragile about that guy is his ego.”

But, despite everything, Melanie agreed with Sasha that Tim was fragile. Even if it was probably in an extremely different way than she thought. The guy was clearly about two seconds away from snapping.

Speaking of two seconds away from snapping, Martin was trying to encourage Jon to put an apple on his head and see if Martin can spear it with a throwing knife, and Melanie and Basira had to go drag him back into his enclosure again. 

“Straight women are insane, Jon,” Melanie said wisely, as Basira dragged Martin kicking and screaming into the recording room. “Stay away from them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with straight people,” Jon said, defensively and predictably. He quickly hid behind Melanie as Basira slammed the door shut, locked it, and jammed it just for good measure. “I - you know, I’m straight. Even if you  _ refuse  _ to believe -”

“Save it for your couple’s therapy session with Martin.” Melanie high fived an exhausted Basira, who returned to her desk to unpause  _ Carol _ . “Seriously, dude, what else do you call that insane thing you have going on with him?”

“Murder is gender neutral,” Jon protested. He grimaced as the door thumped. “Look, maybe I’m...bicurious. It’s not my fault that Martin’s objectively the perfect man who, hypothetically, any rational person would fall in love with.” The sound of a knife scraping against wood screeched through the hallway. “But I don’t want to -”

“Don’t want to date him? Because Georgie made it sound as if that’s the only explanation for the constant murder attempts.”

“Constantly threatening my life is compelling regardless of gender,” Jon said heatedly. He flushed a little, looking fixedly at the floor. “Look, what I don’t want to - don’t want to  _ kiss  _ men, or - you know - yeah. Which means I’m not bisexual. I’m just - you know - into the - murder...bits…it’s gender neutral…”

“Bro,” Melanie said plainly, “you know wanting to date men is a  _ little  _ gay, right?”

“I don’t want to  _ date  _ him, I’m just completely obsessed with him and want him to pay a lot of attention to me all of the time.” Jon paused a beat. “And maybe adopt a dog with him? Maybe a Rottweiler?”

Melanie reached up and clapped him on the shoulder. “Save it for the therapy session.” God, her work was already piling up. “Guess I’m sending you  _ and  _ Tim LGBT resources. Might as well send it to Sasha, soften her up before I introduce her to feminism.”

“What are you talking about?” Jon asked, confused. “Sasha’s bisexual.”

Melanie stared at Jon. Jon stared back at her, as if what he said made perfect sense and was an incredibly obvious thing. 

“It’s incredibly obvious,” Jon said.

Maybe this is what a migraine felt like, Melanie wondered distantly, deeply regretting having put her coffee down on her desk. “What,” Melanie finally forced out, strangled, “makes you say that?”

Jon just shrugged. “She didn’t tell me or anything. I just - knew? It’s a very normal thing to just randomly know invasively personal things about people.”

Well, Melanie thought dizzily, at least they’re back to a 100% queer rate in the Archives. Thank god. Things had been getting kind of weird with straight people around. 

For the rest of their pseudo lunch period Melanie obsessively compiled an easy factsheet of LGBT resources to send to - actually, just to send everybody in the Archives, who gave a fuck. She had thought that they were finally making progress when Basira gave up all pretense of not being in complete and total gay love with Daisy, but apparently God felt the need to give her even more nuts to crack! Or, well, fruits, but -

When viewing this in context of Elias having purposefully chosen sad little orphans for his evil demon cult, it actually made much more sense. Queer people were much more likely to be distant or separated from their families, often traumatically. Much more likely to be lonely, or without significant social networks. Especially when almost  _ all  _ of them were so deep in the closet they were in Narnia. 

On a hunch, Melanie hopped onto AVEN and read through the FAQ. Hm. Georgie had implied some things, but she had refused to share a lot of details on her relationship with Jon - understandable, if Melanie had ever dated Jon she would also repress it. Or, like, their sex life was none of her business, whatever. She took out her phone anyway. 

**Melanie:** hey is Jon ace and massively confused about it

The answer took ten minutes, at which point Melanie was already halfway through putting together a cheery Google Survey made out of the AVEN FAQ suggestions for indications that one may be asexual. 

**Georgie:** Darling do you remember when I had to spend like twenty minutes convincing you that it wasn’t your job to force people out of the closet and make them accept themselves because they weren’t ready?

**Melanie:** vaguely…

**Georgie:** You care so much and you’re so responsible and lovely and protective of your friends but some things they might have to figure out by themselves :(

**Melanie:** normally I’d agree but unless everybody gets over their emotional issues in two months i’m trapped inside this building forever

**Georgie:** yes that does complicate things. His relationship with martin is so cute though!!! <3 3 <3 their play hunting is tres adorb

**Melanie:** you know he’s not LITERALLY a cat right? 

Still, Georgie was probably right. She was always right, but in this case she was probably super-right. Melanie would really love not to meddle in everybody’s love lives, force the inscrutable and irrational back into order, make everybody get along, and extinguish any inter-personal conflict. 

Unfortunately, Melanie really loved doing that, and she was absolutely doing that. Maybe Tim had been right: together, she and the Archives could do anything. So long as Melanie had Basira and Daisy at her side, she always felt as if she could handle everything. Their lives were strange, esoteric, scary, and very stupid, but so long as she had her friends she knew that things would be okay. 

It had been a little scary to lose that. It was scary now, to feel like everybody was depending on her to keep them together. It wasn’t even far off from the truth: everybody, from Tim to Jon, had given Melanie responsibility over everything from their mental states to stopping evil fear demons from murdering them in their sleep. But maybe Melanie needed that as much as they did. Maybe Melanie didn’t feel safe unless she was in control. So long as she believed that she could fix it, she could, and she didn’t have to be scared. 

If she wanted it badly enough, it would happen. Right?

She sent off the quiz to Jon anyway. It had to help. Maybe what Jon needed was a push. If the guy really was murderromantic asexual, he deserved to know, right?

After an hour with still no word from Tim, Melanie began to grow nervous. She sat at Basira’s desk, accepting Basira’s intricate map marked with notes of Daisy’s most common escape routes, notes on Daisy’s schedule, and itemized list of weaknesses. Melanie was a little surprised to see ‘small, innocent puppies’ and ‘Jon (see above)’ on the list of weaknesses, but - well, she probably shouldn’t be surprised. 

“Are you murderromantic too?” Melanie asked, depressed. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Basira said crisply, despite the fact that her desk was covered in dark chocolate wrappers. “The vast majority of people who make regular contact with fear demons are murdersexual.”

“Really?” Melanie thought deeper about this. “Well, that does explain a lot…”

“When you think about it, it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Basira said serenely. “Why do you think the evil fear gods exist? People worship fear. People worship what makes them feel alive. The world is dull and boring, soporific and designed to deaden our senses and our minds. Anything that gets the blood pumping, shoots adrenaline through our system - good or bad - to people numbed by capitalism and the dreariness of life, it can feel like love. It’s why we go on rollercoasters, or fall for the wrong people.” Basira sighed, looking at the framed picture of Daisy on her desk, riding a horse for some reason. “First time we met she tried to stab me, you know. Thought I had followed her across state lines to bring her in. It was love at first assault charge.”

It was a new philosophy on Melanie, but the more she thought about it the more it made sense. It  _ did  _ explain Jude Perry. 

“Hey,” Melanie said, disturbed, “does that make  _ me  _ murdersexual?”

“Your girlfriend literally collects homicidal books for fun.  _ And  _ she’s generationally wealthy.” Basira arched an eyebrow. “Not to mention that you’re a Youtuber.”

“Oh my god,” Melanie said faintly, “nobody’s immune to murdersexual.”

“We’re all masochists here, so just embrace it.”

With perfect timing, that was when the door to the Archives crashed open. No, it was kicked open - by Tim, who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and holding a margarita. 

“What’s up, bitches!” Tim crowed. “Everything in my life displeases me, most of all my own displeasure, but I’m hot and down to fuck! I’m bisexual now!”

Everybody stared at him, various stages of horrified. Basira reached over and clapped her hands over Jon’s ears, to protect his innocence. Sasha was mouthing the word ‘bisexual’ to herself, looking more and more horrified each time she did it. 

“Where did you find the shirt?” Melanie asked bluntly. 

“Stole it from Elias’ closet in his office.” Tim took a long drag of his margarita, very pleased with himself. “That guy has some  _ weird  _ stuff in there, like an entire melon baller collection -”

That was enough of that. Melanie gathered up her notes and research, quickly making her way to the entrance. She efficiently grabbed Tim’s arm, the one not holding the cane, and directed him outside. She kicked the door shut with her heel behind him. She was dealing with  _ that  _ later. 

Tim, completely shamelessly, sucked at his drink before holding it out to her. Melanie took it, drained it, and tossed it aside.

“We’re getting Daisy. Can you find her with your evil monster powers?”

He huffed, and Melanie involuntarily noticed that his shirt was half-way unbuttoned. There was cleavage. Melanie hated her life. “I swore on my ancestors not to use my evil superpowers again. You know, to be honest, it took me  _ way  _ too long to pick up that they were superpowers, I just thought that I was  _ that  _ cool -”

At least he wasn’t as bad as Jon. But, really, nobody was as bad as Jon. “Just do it.”

“Not the way the monster powers  _ work _ , but okay.” 

Despite his protests, he seemed to know what to do. Tim leaned on his cane, looking around, and Melanie silently gave him her notes. He flipped through them with a single-minded intensity, focusing so hard on the pages it was as if he was memorizing them, and she saw his nostrils flare. 

There it was again - that flash of yellow. It was more muted than in the pub, more like a wave resting than the flash of sunlight on a knife, but it was unmistakable. Tim raised his head, sniffing around as if he was a literal dog, and set off down the hallway immediately. 

The tap of his cane echoed across the cement floor, and they stopped only to jam the button on the elevator and anxiously wait for it to beep and grind open. Without hesitation, Tim smacked the button for the second floor, ignoring Melaine’s raised eyebrow. 

The Institute had three levels: basement floor for Artifact Storage and Archives, as well as some boring maintenance rooms down a hallway Melanie never went into. Ground level for lobby, public library with uninteresting books according to Basira, administration offices like HR, IT, and Intake - the stupid assholes who took the statements and resented the Archives highly. First floor was Research and the private library, supposedly full of slightly more interesting books. Second floor was Elias’ office. So far as they could tell, just Elias’ office. A late night drunken exploration session several years ago during an Archival sleepover had revealed other administrative offices, but the mysterious bloodstains in each one probably meant that they should let sleeping dogs lie. You didn't get very far in life by asking too many questions. 

They had, of course, looked for Daisy here. Logically speaking, she should be at Rosie’s old desk, or hanging out in Elias’ old office because Peter never seemed to. But nowadays the second floor was always empty, and nobody walked its halls. 

The door dinged open, and Melanie cautiously slunk out after Tim. There was a small reception room, that was basically just Rosie’s desk and some uncomfortable chairs with outdated magazines, and an open archway into the creepy and overly long hallway that led to Elias’ office. You know, the one with all of the giant tapestries of weird eyes that made Melanie go insane. A door in the back lead to the bloodstained offices, but it was locked and worryingly sticky. 

Tim paused in front of Rosie’s desk, scrutinizing it closely. Melanie was beginning to wonder if his fear demon powers were useless. 

“She’s obviously not here,” Melanie said, exasperated. “She’s  _ never  _ here.”

“Look at the desk.”

Melanie looked at the desk. There was nothing on it. 

At her skeptical look, Tim elaborated. “I remember Rosie’s desk. There were middle aged lady tchotchkes, weren’t there? Pictures of her grandbabies, Beanie Babies, inspirational Bible quotes, right?” 

Oh. Melanie looked back down at the desk. “It’s empty. But that’s not weird, is it? Rosie was transferred after Elias left.”

In answer, Tim walked around the desk, accidentally jostling the rolling chair and sending it rolling a little across the floor. He bent down and pulled at one of the desk drawers, finding it locked. He sighed and withdrew some small wires from his pocket, and within a few seconds the desk drawer popped open. 

Inside was…

“That’s a lot of video games,” Melanie said blankly. “And brass knuckles.”

“Daisy’s desk if I’ve ever seen it,” Tim said, voice taut and grim. 

“How do you know what Daisy’s desk drawers look like?”

“I broke into the Archives after hours and went through all of your things, obviously. Good on you for all that booze in the desk, live your best life.” Tim closed the drawer and opened the one underneath it, finding only actual administrative paperwork and folders that all looked really boring. “So she really does do work…”

“How does this help?” Melanie said, frustrated. “So we know she’s still alive and that she works here. We  _ knew  _ that. We’ve seen her around. Even if we did finally find where she works, it’s not as if she’s  _ here _ .” Melanie paused a second in thought. “Maybe we can stake it out and wait for her to come back…”

“Have to disagree with you on that one.” Tim smiled, a harsh but triumphant slash across his face. “Daisy’s right here.”

Melaine looked around the empty room, and down the empty hallway. “Nice to know you’ve finally cracked, sport.”

He propped his hand on the desk and slowly stood up, grimacing with pain. He leaned against the desk and crossed his arms, staring directly at the cheap office chair that he had accidentally sent rolling. “I didn’t touch that chair.”

Melanie stared at him. Then she stared at the chair. 

“Holy shit, Daisy’s a ghost.”

“Just come out,” Tim drawled, for all appearances bored. “We know you’re here. Don’t waste any more of our time.”

For a second, two seconds, Melanie thought that Tim had gone even more insane and had started talking to himself. She wouldn’t blame him. If she was left buried alive in a coffin for six months she’d grow some imaginary friends too. No judgement here. 

But then a cold wind blew, like the aircon had cranked itself up far too high, and like fog slowly dissolving into the air a figure emerged. It was strange, and made static fuzz in Melanie’s ears, but it was almost instant: one second the chair was empty, and the next second Daisy was sitting in it, looking pissed. 

She looked...she didn’t look great. She was wearing a button-up and slacks instead of her usual tank top and jeans. Her eyes were rimmed with thick bags, and her normally piercing and sharp blue eyes seemed just a little cloudier. But it was still her, still Daisy, still her friend, and Melanie felt something in chest relax in relief - something she hadn’t even known was tense. Some part of her still felt as if that so long was Daisy was here, things would be alright.

“What,” she said hoarsely, “are you  _ doing  _ here.”

“Looking for you, obviously,” Tim said promptly. Daisy looked surprised but not shocked - she had to have known that Tim was alive and back. Just for effect, Tim winked and grinned roguishly. “Miss me?”

Strangely, Daisy’s look softened. “Idiot.” She glanced at Melanie, who was busy getting a little choked up. “I told you to leave it be.”

“And I  _ tried  _ to respect that,” Melanie cried. The last time she had talked with Daisy was three months ago, after Melanie had begged her to come back again. She had just said to leave it be, and then disappeared. Not that Melanie was bitter or anything. “Since when do you have superpowers? Are you a fear demon now? If you’re evil now you have to tell us, that’s a rule. Like - like undercover cops.”

“Actually, officers don’t -”

“Shut it, pig,” Daisy said, not even looking at Tim. Tim, trained like a rambunctious dog, shut up. “My superpowers aren’t any of your business.”

“If you’re a  _ fear demon  _ -”

“Sometimes people are fear demons. Mind your own business.”

“I  _ can’t _ !” Melanie yelled, and Daisy stopped talking. “We need to get the gang back together to accomplish one last heist! If we don’t all work together we’re never going to win the bet against Peter Lukas!”

“Wait,” Daisy said, “what?”

Melanie explained in short order, incredulous and thankful that they even got this far. Daisy looked thoughtful, listening to Melanie detail her strange and weirdly supportive encounter with Elias and the million ways that the Archives had fallen apart without her. Melanie tried not to oversell it, as she really didn’t want to make Daisy feel guilty for ditching them all, but - well, whatever got her back. 

“ - so if you don’t come back we’re probably all going to die and cry a lot,” Melanie said finally. She found herself faltering, met with Daisy’s impassive and unimpressed face. “So you should come back. Yeah.”

Daisy stared at her, the moment stretching between them. Daisy was always like that: letting the silences linger, content to let herself think, ready and willing to make the other person uncomfortable. 

Finally, she said, “No.”

Of course. Melanie screamed into her hands as Tim’s brow furrowed in thought. Melanie was once again unfortunately reminded that Tim was probably actually pretty smart. “Why did you even leave?” Tim asked. “Seriously.”

Maybe not that smart. “We asked her five times when she first left,” Melanie said, losing all hope. “She won’t -”

“Got depressed.”

Both Melanie and Tim stared at an unrepentant Daisy. She shrugged, in a ‘what can you do?’ kind of way. 

“I’m sorry,” Melanie said pleasantly, strangled, “you joined up as secretary for Director of Evil because you were feeling bad?”

“Yeah.” Daisy swiveled a bit in her chair, and if Melanie didn’t know any better she’d say that she was feeling a little awkward. “You know, just with - everything. Had an episode. I always, like, isolate myself when that happens. So I did. Or I tried. You guys wouldn’t stop pushing. So when Peter asked me if I wanted to get away from it all...get some privacy...I said yeah.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “I think I’m part fear demon now?”

Melanie stared at her, feeling very uncomfortable. She had never quite known what to do when people admitted this stuff to her. Much less Daisy, who was - well, she had known that Daisy felt that way sometimes, but it was still so strange. It was  _ Daisy _ . She might as well not have feelings!

“Did being depressed make you evil?” Melanie asked. “That sucks. Also, like, totally not fair.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure if I like it. Superpowers are fun, though.”

“What kind of superpowers? Invisibility? That’s useful!”

“It’s some kind of alternate dimension thing.” Daisy waved a hand demonstratively. “Dead useful for avoiding people, or if the AC isn’t working. Plus when people annoy you, you can, like - you know, throw them in.”

“Is that safe? Or does it, like, drive people insane?”

“It definitely drives them insane but I’m pretty sure it’s perfectly safe,” Daisy said with a straight face. 

“I support you no matter your life decisions,” Melanie said, because she was a good friend. “But I don’t suppose you could, you know, hypothetically -”

“Why is it that when I go all fear demon on people I’m a pig, but when Daisy does it then we just yell ‘slay, queen’?” Tim asked, irrationally annoyed. 

“ - throw Peter Lukas in the alternate dimension?” Melanie asked hopefully. “Just to get him out of the way.”

“I’m afraid that won’t work.”

Everybody jumped a foot in the air except Daisy, who just looked bored. 

A man had appeared in the entrance to the hallway leading into Elias’ office. It was possible he could have just walked down the hallway and popped his head in to startle them, but Melanie knew in her gut that he hadn’t. That he had appeared from thin air, the same as Daisy had. 

The guy was tall. Like, tall tall. The kind of tall that made Melanie resentful of her gender and status in life. He was also dressed somewhat like a cartoon character, with a big sailor hat and big sailor coat and a big sailor pipe. Everything about him screamed ‘Captain Haddock’, or perhaps ‘I’m trying too hard’. 

Very belatedly, Melanie recognized him as Peter Lukas. Last time she had seen him he was avoiding giving a speech to the Institute at the holiday party, looking miserable the whole time. 

“Peter,” Daisy said flatly, without turning to look at him. She hadn’t even startled at his abrupt entrance. “How long you been there?”

“Just got here!” Peter said cheerfully. He squinted at Melanie and Tim, who both abruptly tried their best to look extremely threatening. Sure enough, he quailed slightly. “And...who are…”

“Elias’ manual,” Daisy said, completely monotone. 

“Right, right.” Peter dug in his voluminous coat pocket, withdrawing a small notebook and flipping through it. He squinted at a page, holding it a little out like an old man. “Archive Assistants, right. Uh...curly red hair, only white girl…” He snapped his fingers, pointing at Melanie. “Melanie King! Wow, a celebrity in my Institute. I think my sister tried to get me to sponsor your show a few months back.”

“Do you want to do that?” Melanie asked, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. “I’ve been looking for sponsors, but all I’ve been getting are Elias’ shell companies.”

“Afraid I can’t.” Peter frowned at the book. “You have a flee on sight order from Elias. Five star danger warning. He warned me that you might try to get me on your show. Fate worse than death, I think.” He looked down at Melanie, vaguely frightened. “Is that why you’re trying to throw me into my own Lonely? The book’s right.”

“What about me?” Tim demanded, as Melaine preened. “What’s my entry say?”

Peter squinted at him too, flipping through the book. “Uh. Chinese, weak looking, non-threatening...oh, wow, four star danger warning. That’s very impressive, Martin.”

“My name’s Tim,” Tim said desolately. 

“Whoops. Uh, Tim Stoker...wolfie! Right. Two stars, easily manipulated.” Peter snapped the book shut as Tim mourned his entire life. He glanced down at Daisy. “I just came out to ask you if you’ve finished filing that very important Fairchild paperwork?”

Silently, Daisy withdrew a box of papers from underneath her desk. She also pulled out a paper shredder and dropped it on top of the desk, making a loud thump. Locking eyes with Peter, she withdrew a piece of paper that looked vaguely important and fed it into the whirring and grinding shredder. 

Peter winced. “Daisy, that’s the funding contract -”

Daisy fed another piece of paper into the shredder, face expressionless. 

“Not the IRS W-2 tax form -”

Grind, whirr, grind. 

“Okay! Okay! No filing! Understood!” Peter shivered as Daisy turned the shredder off, his own death flashing before his eyes. “Can you at least answer your emails - no, that’s okay, that’s not important, don’t worry about it.” Daisy slowly lowered her finger from the power button on the shredder. “I’ll just - go...over there. Yep. You’re coming along  _ great  _ on the Lonely thing, by the way -”

“Leave.”

“Leaving!”

Just as quickly as he came, he left. Daisy squinted into the distance for a second, probably using her fear demon powers to determine if he had actually left or if he was just hanging around like a creeper. 

Something terrible occurred to Melanie, so she quickly said as loudly as possible, “Wow, it’s so creepy how that Lukas guy can do that! What if he, like, hangs out in women’s bathrooms? I bet he’s a pervert.”

Tim squawked in rage as Daisy’s face remained expressionless. “He’s a  _ what _ ? What a fucking freak! Melanie, if anybody’s making you feel unsafe -”

“Yeah, he’s gone now,” Daisy said. Melanie patted Tim on the hand. “Wow. Guess you earned that five star rating, Mel.” At Tim’s obvious affront, Daisy continued, “Don’t worry. The guy’s gayer than Martin listening to Jon yell at someone.”

“I do my best,” Melanie bragged. 

Tim just seemed disturbed. “Does that mean that  _ I  _ have to worry about -”

“I’m not going back,” Daisy said flatly, and Tim abruptly shut up. “I mean it. I don’t feel like it. You don’t need me. Basira -” Daisy faltered, swallowing, before continuing. “Basira’s better off.”

“She’s watching  _ romantic comedies _ ,” Tim stressed. “The situation’s critical.”

“Basira deserves better than a sadsack fear demon,” Daisy said bitterly. She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms and looking away. “You guys remember what Mike Crew said? That we’re all just walking wounded. Leaking our pain everywhere. Fear demons, they...take that pain and pass it onto other people. They make other people hurt, just because they hurt so much. That’s me now. That’s always been me. I’ve always been damaged. I’ve always made it everybody else’s problem. Basira deserves better than that.”

Maybe the situation was worse than they thought. 

There had always been something strange about Daisy, something she had been holding back. At first Melanie had thought it was just because she was a serial killer on the run from the law, but it proved to be more than that. There was always something about Daisy she was too ashamed to let you see. The more she pressed it down, the more she pretended it wasn’t there, the more it leaked out of her. She couldn’t control it, so it exploded everywhere, and Melanie could tell that Daisy resented every second. 

Daisy never liked anything to be about her. She never liked to be the center of attention. Just like Basira, she locked everything up tight, and just like Basira she would rather you read her mind to figure out what she wants than actually have to express it. She had made this journey and this decision to leave them and accept her loneliness by herself, because she couldn’t bear for them to know. 

But Melanie didn’t have time for this. Daisy had gotten her space, Melanie had left her alone to figure stuff out. It wasn’t working, and this self-isolation wasn’t helping. Some things couldn’t be fixed with the judicious application of friendship, but some things would never get better without it. Sure, maybe there was nothing Melanie could do, but -

Maybe there was something she could do. And maybe if Melanie wanted this hard enough, if she tried hard enough, if she pulled everybody through this dark winter, then it would happen. In this strange world where sadness manifested in cold and fog, then maybe happiness could be as powerful. 

It didn’t seem fair, that only sadness and fear and pain were powerful. Maybe stupid, cringe emotions like happiness and optimism and hope could be just as powerful. If Melanie believed that hard enough, couldn’t it be true?

“Okay,” Melanie said, shrugging and shocking both Tim and Daisy. “If you say so, we’ll respect your decisions.”

“Since when do you respect people’s decisions?” Tim asked blankly. 

But Daisy’s eyebrow just twitched - intuiting correctly that Melanie was up to something. “You’ll leave me alone.”

“Sure will,” Melanie said cheerfully. “Just let me know your new email so I can forward the footage to you.”

Daisy’s eyes narrowed. “What footage.”

Hooked. Melanie affected surprise. “What do you mean? Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard  _ what _ ?”

Reel her in. Melanie leaned forward, as if she was sharing a secret. “You know Martin’s hyper-violent crush on Jon?”

Daisy’s eye twitched. “I watch the vlogs.” 

Oh, she wasn’t happy about  _ that _ . “Well,” Melanie said slowly, “I heard that he was going to ask him out soon. It’s going to do great things to my ratings, everybody’s been shipping JonMartin forever. My comments section used to call it the dinghy, actually.” Daisy’s eye twitched harder. “We think that the big romantic gesture is probably going to involve a crossbow. Don’t you think that’s cute?”

Daisy stood up abruptly, sending the chair skittering. “I’m coming back and killing Martin.”

“Is that even possible?” Tim asked, with morbid fascination. “He’s kinda -”

“I’m coming back and killing Martin.”

“We’re taking care of the Martin situation,” Melanie said, internally cheering. “Trust me, we’re dropping the both of them in therapy. But you should drop by every so often to make sure that Jon’s not dead. Maybe text him back so you know he’s safe? He’s going to need someone to talk to about the Martin situation.”

Daisy gnashed her teeth, but she dug in her pocket and turned on her phone. “Done. I’m going to kill the little rat -”

“Actually,” Melanie said, “I have an idea. I think you’ll be more useful here than in the Archives.”

And, when Melanie explained her plan, everybody agreed with her. Both Tim and Daisy seemed a little relieved - glad that Melanie had a plan, glad that she was taking care of this. 

But it wasn’t Melanie, not really. She couldn’t be this confident, make these plans, without Daisy. Even Tim - all of this had been his idea, elegantly picking out the group dynamics that even Melanie hadn’t seen. He was surprisingly good at psychological warfare. Maybe it was a job requirement. 

Maybe it wasn’t objectively true, that Melanie could do anything so long as her friends were with her. But it felt that way, and maybe if Melanie felt it hard enough then it would become true. 

Maybe Melanie could be her own Stoker of peace and love. 

Even if it was stupid, shouldn’t she try?

And should she stop calling them Stokers?

  
  
  
  


The next day, they implemented their plan. 

It was an all-hands on deck plan. Daisy wouldn’t be able to help, as she had to keep up the pretense of keeping up the pretense of working, but that was why they had Sasha for the muscle. Sasha would be more useful as muscle if she wasn’t constantly trying to pretend that she was the brains of this operation - which, she was, but rude for her to admit it - but they had to make do with what they had. 

What they had was an optimistic workplace, for the first time in three months. Basira had marched into work with a grim determination instead of sleep deprivation, Sasha was now open carrying instead of concealed carrying, Tim had only monologued for twenty minutes on the Underground about the meaninglessness of life instead of thirty, and Jon bounced through the door bright-eyed and bushy-tailed because Daisy had finally texted him back. 

Which was Melanie’s cue to ruin Jon’s morning and set Sasha on dragging him into the recording room. It took Basira a solid ten minutes to overcome her emotional devastation over Daisy texting Jon but not her until she could wrangle Martin into the recording room too, but that only bolstered Melanie’s hypothesis. As soon as she made Dasira happen again, they would be a well-oiled machine. 

They spent most of yesterday evening repurposing the recording room into a therapy room. This was mostly achieved through digging into document storage, the little room off the library that was Basira’s favorite nap spot for when she was having a mid-day migraine again. The library couch was far comfier, and everybody else’s favorite nap spot, but it was dark and quiet in document storage. Melanie was in the process of convincing Tim to live there, which wasn’t going super well. 

Still, it was the best spot in the Archives for digging into hidden things. The flotsam and jetsam of old lives lapped up against its shores, and if you emptied enough boxes you could find the strangest detritus of people long gone. They brought Helen in sometimes, just to look for her old stuff and share the memories of the old Archives. She seemed to hate it, which made her happy, so they kept doing it. Whenever they found some of her old office supplies they always gave it to Michael, who seemed thrilled. There were other little pieces of life in there too - books annotated by Mary Keay, which they gave to a surprisingly emotional Gerry, and creased star maps initialed by Sarah Carpenter. Also, like, a  _ lot  _ of cigarette lighters, which made Jon huffy. She ended up grabbing a metal Zippo one with a cool spiderweb pattern and stuffing it in her pocket, just because. 

Most importantly, she had found an incense diffuser which had quite possibly spent its early life in use for those Fire Cult people - perfect for relaxing therapy. Melanie also dug up a calming stuffed animal with plastic eyes that really moved, which was very cuddly and calming. Her therapist’s office was complete, and this would surely work. 

Granted, it was bootleg therapy, but when all of your problems were of the supernatural variety, you took what you could get. Plus Melanie felt it might be therapist abuse to inflict Martin on any of them. They were a protected class. 

Finally, they got Jon situated in a chair with a stim toy, and Basira wrangled Martin in. Sasha was waiting at the door, arms crossed. 

“Drop the weapons,” Sasha said. “This is a safe space.”

“I feel safer with the weapons,” Martin said, blank-faced. 

Melanie, from where she was sitting on the opposite end of the table with her hands clasped, raised an eyebrow. 

Martin huffed, but he took out his two closed switchblades from each jacket pocket and gave them to Sasha before unstrapping his shoulder holstered combat knife and giving it to her too. 

She raised an eyebrow at him. Martin grudgingly took out the knife from his boot and passed it to her too. 

“Don’t insult my intelligence.”

Martin opened up the lining of his jacket and gave her another knife. “And that’s  _ it _ ,” he said aggressively. 

“You forgot the one holstered in the small of your back,” Jon added, under the impression he was being helpful. “And the butterfly knife in your heel.”

After that frankly worrying display, Melanie finally sat down Jon and Martin across from her and ushered everybody else into the room. Just to be careful, she checked underneath the table - sure enough, there was a tape recorder. 

She threw it out of the room like it was a small fish, before closing the door firmly. When she turned around, the tape recorder was back on the table. Melanie threw that one out too. 

“Okay,” Melanie said, settling into her chair. She had a notepad in front of her, and was strangely nervous. “It’s time to get started. It’s important for everybody in this room to be honest, fair, and respectful of -”

“Oh, here’s where it went!” Jon said brightly, pulling out a tape recorder from his jacket pocket. “Thought I’d lost you.”

“Is the tape recorder problem getting worse?” Melanie asked Martin, who just shrugged. 

“I like them. Good target practice.”

“Great.” Melanie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let it stay.” Honestly, she didn’t notice half the time - every room in the Archives always had tape recorders anyway, and Gerry seemed to collect them like trading cards, so they were all over his house too. “Respectful of each other’s boundaries, yadda yadda yadda. Okay, you two: what’s the goal of therapy for you right now?”

“I think this is a new one, actually,” Jon mused, inspecting it. “Wow, it’s a real vintage 1975 Lloyd’s portable tape cassette. That’s a good find.”

“Doesn’t that one have a 5% drop rate?” Martin asked. 

“I believe so. It’s a nice find, good condition. It’s been a while since we got a valuable one, lately it feels like all of the drops have been just boring 1996 Sony Walkmans -”

“Guys! Focus!” 

“Right!” Jon sat up straighter, folding his hands in his lap. “I would say my goal of therapy is - to increase communication?” He glanced at Martin out of the corner of his eye. “And, well, I’ve never strictly been  _ in  _ therapy before, and I’d like a chance to talk about my repressed childhood trauma from being suddenly orphaned and left in the care of my emotionally unavailable grandmother.”

“It’s not healthy to compulsively lie about a tragic baby orphan background,” Melanie said disapprovingly. Jon opened his mouth, then closed it. She turned to Martin. “What about you? What would you like to get out of this?”

“To be honest,” Martin said, as if he was remarking on the weather, “this is an idiotic waste of time.”

“Excuse you!” Melanie said. 

Jon didn’t seem surprised. “We talked about the rudeness, Martin.”

Rudeness? Martin? But Martin just rolled his eyes. His posture was the same as it ever was - straight, with his hands folded in his lap, shoulders a little hunched, but somehow everything about him just radiated complete disdain for Melanie and these proceedings. 

“Jon and I don’t need an intervention. Whatever we do is none of your business, or anybody else’s.” Jon nodded empathetically at this. “I don’t need to be pathologized by a busybody.”

“You cannot honestly call you and Jon’s relationship normal or healthy.”

“Why not?” Martin said, as if it was obvious. “There’s no such thing as a normal or healthy relationship, especially not for people like us. You’re all just play-acting at being normal. Everybody who works here is a freak, so don’t worry about it.”

“We’re normal,” the chronic perpetrator of psychological warfare protested. “And that’s a pessimistic view, don’t you think? Healthy relationships exist. Even if we aren’t normal people, we’re capable of having normal and healthy relationships.”

“Normal relationships are a trap,” Martin said pleasantly, “meant to indoctrinate, brainwash, and force you into pretending that you’re all a happy family or whatever. Once you let go of performing to society’s expectation of conformity you get a lot happier.”

“Martin means letting go of not stabbing people,” Jon stage-whispered. 

“But you’re really into politeness and everything,” Melanie pointed out, confused. “You’re even polite when you’re stabbing people. What gives with that?”

Martin was silent for a long moment, eye twitching, mouth twisted in something strange. It was mild, almost unreadable, and yet it was one of the strongest reactions she had seen from him in quite a while. Martin, who pinballed between the picture of serenity and destructive rage with no in-between, was showing signs of being mildly peeved. 

“People let you get away with almost anything if you’re  _ nice  _ about it,” Martin finally said. “All anybody wants is to be able to get away with stuff. I just know how to do it better than most other people. Either you hide it and pretend you aren’t doing it, or you make it impossible for them to stop you from doing it. That’s what the knives are for. It’s really simple. I don’t know why more people don’t just do whatever they want.”

“Uh,” Melanie said, feeling as if this therapy session had already gotten away from her.

“Everybody was always telling me how  _ nice  _ I was,” Martin said. His speech got just a little faster. He clenched his hands in his lap. “How  _ nice  _ it was that I took care of my mother, how  _ nice  _ it was that I dropped out of school for her. That was Martin Blackwood: so  _ nice _ , so  _ sweet _ , so  _ easy  _ to walk all over. I even believed it for a bit. I believed that I was nice and sweet and loving and helpful and selfless. But my Mum knew better. Mum knew that I was a terrible, vicious person. She told me so, every day. And after a while, I knew it too.”

“I’m afraid you might need actual therapy,” Melanie said. 

But Martin wasn’t listening to her anymore. “So I started thinking - what’s the point of it anymore? Everybody knew who Martin Blackwood was, if they knew who I was at all. I could strangle a kitten in front of them and they’d think I was hugging it. Or they wouldn’t even notice me at all. The only person left who wouldn’t be fooled was Mum. She didn’t matter either. She was delusional. The doctors said so. Dementia. Nothing she saw could be trusted. If she saw the anger that rose in me - that burning, corrosive hatred - then she was just another senile old lady. That poor dear.”

Martin smiled, just a little. 

“If she said that she saw me setting fire to the house...well. That poor dear. So confused.”

“He didn’t kill his mother,” Jon was quick to reassure a struck Melanie. “Just, ah, you know -”

“The insurance money was mine, of course. It put her in a...eh, an alright nursing home. Who cares. I didn’t. I was free. I had time to myself, to pursue my own passions and hobbies. Cooking was fun. Ran my own show after a while. Invented grandma’s recipes and traditional dishes. Would sweet Martin Blackwood lie? Had time to pursue some other hobbies, too. A chef needs a lot of knives. For cooking.” He breathed in, and out, slowly. “After a while, anger became a hobby too. I spent money on it, I spent time. It was my only friend, the only thing that made me feel better. I could control it, at first: hide it behind a smile, close the lid on that boiling pot. But after a while it wouldn’t stop boiling over. It started scalding everything. I liked it when it scalded other people. But mostly it just burned me. I got to like that too, though. After a while.”

Melanie opened her mouth, then closed it. 

“Jude Perry was right, you know,” Martin said finally. “There is an insanity inherent in man. We love what hurts us. My anger hurts me so much, but it feels so good. Like a dish so spicy that it burns the roof of your mouth. Why do we keep eating it? Is it just because it makes us feel alive, like we’re worth something? Or do we hope that if we keep eating it enough, then it will stop hurting? I don’t know. I never did. Jon understands. But I keep eating of my own heart, no matter how bitter it is, and making this choice. The choice to hate. It’s easy. Nobody can even tell.”

Melanie clapped her hands. “And we’ll be right back!”

  
  
  
  


“Well  _ that  _ didn’t work!”

“Hm,” Basira said, bending over the tape recorder. Lucky for them the whole thing had been recorded. Lucky. “Well, guy’s a psycho. I respect it.”

“He definitely has some things to work through,” Sasha said diplomatically. “For what it’s worth, I totally told you guys so.”

“It’s not worth anything.”

“Sorry, right.”

“I can’t believe Martin was a fear demon this entire time,” Melanie moaned. “He seemed so sweet and innocent and harmless!”

“We don’t know he’s a fear demon,” Basira pointed out, as Sasha looked very strongly as if she wanted to argue Melanie’s points but knew that it was a waste of time, like most things Sasha cared about. 

Melanie dragged her hands down her face, giving Basira a deadpan look. “He said Jude Perry  _ had a point _ .”

“...yeah, he’s doomed.” Basira crossed her arms and sighed, slumping a little in her seat. “Can’t believe this office is half fear demon now. This is so stupid.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re all crazy?” Sasha offered brightly. 

They had settled on locking Martin inside the recording room, which he suffered stoically. It was probably a good thing that he seemed to expect this behavior from them, because his protests seemed more token than anything else. If the guy was still...rational, then he knew that what he said was objectively alarming. Even if Jon was telling the truth and he hadn’t  _ murdered his mother _ , he was still absolutely a fear demon. Most importantly, he was a fear demon who hadn’t really seemed to recognize that yet - in Melanie’s experience, once you accepted that part of yourself you got a lot less annoying. Daisy and Tim knew what was going on with them and they seemed chill about it, if not necessarily happy. 

If Jon was a fear demon, then he definitely wasn’t cognizant of it, but Melanie doubted the guy was full evil. Maybe he was more like...a fear demon intern. Like Michael. Or, like Gerry, he had been punched in the face by the Grim Reaper and now he had clout. 

That wasn’t important right now. Jon was the most harmless human being or fear demon alive. He was physically incapable of hurting a fly - Melanie had seen him try and fail, humiliated. In fact, he was so distraught over Martin that they had all stuck him and Tim together in the cowpen, where Melanie could hear the faint sounds of Tim trying to emotionally support Jon through this difficult time - which was inherently somewhat comedic, because this was Tim. Meanwhile, Sasha, Basira, and Melanie were in the library, actually trying to solve a problem. 

It was a good thing that they were all here, Melanie reflected. All of the brain cells in the Archives, right in this room. Between the three of them they could solve any problem in a rational and normal manner. Sasha and Basira were geniuses, they’d figure something out. 

“Maybe we can get him a real therapist,” Sasha said finally. 

“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard in my life,” Melanie said. Sasha sighed, as if she had expected this. “A real therapist isn’t going to get that he’s a fear demon. They’ll think that he’s crazy.”

“I mean -”

“Martin isn’t crazy,” Basira said flatly. “In this weird-ass world, being a fear demon is the most logical thing you can do.” Melanie nodded and pointed at Basira, acknowledging the point. But Basira just looked thoughtful, rubbing her chin slightly. “But maybe he does need a doctor. Just someone to look at him and make sure that he’s healthy. Take a look at his teeth or something. Check for rabies.”

“Wouldn’t we run into the same problem?” Sasha asked. “We’d have to get somebody actually supernatural to take a look at him.” She gnawed at a primly manicured fingernail, deep in thought. “What fear demon do we know with a medical degree?”

“There’s the med students who gave us an interview a few months back,” Basira said. “We could ring them up.”

“We want Martin to walk out of the check-up with the same amount of organs as when he walked in, so maybe not,” Sasha said. 

“Does anybody really need their appendix, though?”

An idea occurred to Melanie, and she brightened. “I saw Helen in a sexy nurse outfit holding a giant syringe once!” 

“That was a really sexy outfit,” Sasha admitted grudgingly. “Did great things to her breasts.”

“Sold, then,” Basira said, slapping the table, politely ignoring Sasha’s WLW moment. She’d tell them when she was ready. “Helen is the obvious solution to this problem.”

A knock echoed in the library door, and Tim poked his head in. “Sorry to interrupt your plotting, girls,” Tim said blithely, “but we have a visitor.”

Since when did Helen work  _ that  _ fast? Melanie tumbled out of the library with the others, ready to wave hello to a yellow doorway, but instead all she found was a short, blonde woman lingering in the doorway of the Archives. She seemed uncomfortable, arms folded and shoulders hunched, and she was scowling mightily at Jon - who was so excited he was almost crying. 

“No hugs!” Daisy barked, and Jon visibly wilted. “One meter distance, Sims.”

But it was Basira who got Melanie’s attention, and she could tell that she was who Daisy was really focusing on. Basira’s eyes were wide, breath caught, a greater display of emotion than Melanie usually saw from the stoic woman. Daisy’s arms were folded and she was looking away, but there was no doubt that all of her attention was on Basira. The moment seemed to freeze between them, caught in the amber of mistaken pain and unhealed wounds, and it seemed as if neither of them knew if it could be fixed. 

But Basira didn’t seem to care about that, not right now. She just seemed happy to see her. “Daisy?”

Daisy scowled even fiercer, jabbing a finger at Basira. “I’m not talking about my feelings with you!”

“Good!” Basira yelled back, startling Sasha. “I don’t want to talk to you about my feelings either!”

“If I was talking to you about my feelings,” Daisy yelled, “I’d tell you that I missed you a lot, every day, all the time!”

“And if I was doing it, I’d call you an idiot who should have texted me back!”

“If we were hypothetically talking about this, I’d call myself a coward who was too scared to text you back because she was afraid you’d hate her!”

“If we were talking about emotions, then I’d say that I’m incapable of hating you, idiot!”

“Good!”

“Good!”

Then they exchanged extremely goopy eyes and very pointedly didn’t hold hands. At Jon’s desolate expression, Daisy sighed and opened her arms, and let Jon hug her very tightly. At Melanie’s hopeful look Daisy just hissed. That was fine. She was patient. 

From where she was standing next to Melanie, seeming a little as if she was watching a mating ritual in a nature documentary, Sasha whistled. “Those two are so repressed,” Sasha whispered. “Good thing I’m not like that, and I’ve never repressed anything in my life.”

“Yeah, me too,” Tim said, from where he was standing pointedly on the other side of Melanie. He paused a beat. “Except about the bisexual thing. I’m  _ totally  _ bisexual, forgot if I mentioned.”

“You’ve mentioned, Timothy,” Sasha gritted out, between clenched teeth.

“If  _ you _ were hypothetically bisexual -” Melanie started hopefully, before Sasha groaned and stormed off into the corner. 

That was how Helen found them, when she excitedly burst into the scene in response to Melanie’s text five minutes later: Basira and Daisy pointedly sitting on opposite ends of the room making eyes at each other, Jon sitting very close to a Martin who was effectively handcuffed to a chair talking his ear off about his childhood, Tim and Sasha pointedly sitting on opposite ends of the room from each other pointedly  _ not  _ making eyes at each other, and Melanie stuck sitting next to Tim wishing that her girlfriend was here and that Tim would stop ranting to her about the futility of existence as he ignored his own girlfriend. 

“I have to say,” Helen said, throwing open her yellow door and clapping her hands. “This is the first time someone’s called me a solution to a problem!”

Michael poked their head out from behind her, blinking with eyelids shuttering like the aperture of a camera. “Are we playing doctor? I call surgeon!”

“Of course you can be surgeon if you want, honey,” Helen cooed, patting their curly blonde mop of hair. She winked at Melanie, like a supernova dying. “Take me to the patient, darling! I call sexy nurse again.”

It was possible that this wasn’t Melanie’s best idea.

  
  
  
  


It was short work to explain the problem to Helen, who approached it with all of the seriousness that Helen approached anything: that is, with a costume change and constant meta-commentary about the proceedings. It always made Melanie’s head hurt if she thought about it too hard, so she didn’t think about it too hard. Dealing with Helen was easy, she didn’t know why people always called it ‘traumatizing’ and ‘scarring for life’. 

So she politely tuned out Helen’s helpful suggestions to a morbidly curious Jon about how sexy he would be if he roleplayed an abusive psychiatrist in bed and focused on Martin, who was resentfully tugging at the handcuff. Michael had already transformed themself into an adorable little surgeon’s outfit, complete with white lab coat and scrubs with bright white sneakers. Their lab coat was so white. It was so blindingly, terribly, awfully white, like the sterile halls of a hospital, a hospital that hated you -

“Can you turn it down a little there, bud?” Melanie asked, squinting as she walked over to wait with Daisy next to Martin. “We don’t want to drive Martin even crazier.”

Daisy had apparently shown up to serve as extra muscle and emotional support to Jon - at least, that was what she had said. Melanie had the suspicion that she just wanted to make sure no funny business was going on. Which was just stupid, as it implied that anyone in the Archives had their love lives in order enough to have sex. 

Wait. Except for Melanie. Holy shit, she was the only person in the friend group with an actual partner instead of a stupid will-they-don’t-they! Hell yeah! She totally won the competition that nobody else knew existed!

“Sorry,” Michael said serenely. “I’m just inspecting the patient. Nurse Helen, can you bring me my magnifying glass?”

“This is a really bad idea,” Daisy muttered. Judging by Tim’s grimace, he appeared to agree with her. Fun ruiners. “This is not a job for Doogie Howser, M.D.”

“I’m pretty sure it was Doogie Howser’s job to torture people, actually,” Jon said thoughtfully. 

“Of course! Here you go, doctor.” Helen glided back over to Martin’s desk, where he was currently somewhat handcuffed. She withdrew a cartoonishly giant magnifying glass from the breast pocket of her  _ very  _ tight nurse’s uniform, passing it to a solemn Michael. “How’s the patient?”

“Very pissed off,” Martin said blandly. Jon, hovering at one of Helen’s many elbows, patted him supportively on the hand. “Can we just get this over with so I can go back to work?”

“Don’t worry,” Sasha said, rubbernecking next to Helen with absolutely everybody else. Basira was filming the events with Melanie’s camcorder, which was - a little morbid, actually? “It’ll all be over soon.”

“Soon is such a subjective word,” Helen said cheerfully. 

At least Martin didn’t look overly upset by the proceedings. Actually, if Melanie was in his position - flanked by two fear demons pretending to be doctors, surrounded by rubbernecking queers and the fear demons who loved them, and handcuffed to a chair, Melanie would probably be completely freaking out. But he was just blinking sleepily, as if this was yet another day in the life of Martin Blackwood. To be fair, it kind of was.

Michael held up the magnifying glass, carefully waving it over Martin and making various thoughtful humming sounds. When Melanie craned her head to get a look inside, she saw - 

An endless, glittering spiral of fractals. A kaleidoscope of patterns, glimmering in a rainbow. Every integral of pi. Replication of cells in an organism. Pure, unhinged physics. Her mother’s face. The face of God -

Her vision descended into slightly sweaty darkness, and Melanie realized that Daisy had clapped her hand over Melanie’s eyes. Melanie grunted in thanks and slowly peeled it off, taking care this time not to look into the magnifying glass. She saw that Daisy’s other hand was occupied covering Jon’s eyes, ignoring his whining. 

“ _ There’s  _ the problem!” Michael cried. They nodded professionally, tucking the magnifying glass back in a voluminous pocket. “Yes, I’ve made a diagnosis.”

Helen trilled behind a skeletal hand. “What  _ is  _ it, doctor? Will we have to amputate?”

Thankfully, Michael just shook their head. “No, a full recovery is possible. However, we will have to ready the patient for emergency surgery.”

“Emergency surgery?” Sasha squawked. 

“Is that really necessary?” Basira asked, paling. 

“This isn’t a good idea,” Daisy grunted. 

“Wow, who could have known that calling the Insane Mother & Kid duo would result in maiming,” Tim muttered. 

“ _ Emergency surgery _ ?” Jon yelled. 

“Uh,” Martin asked, raising his free hand. “Do I get a say in this?”

“You already signed the consent form,” Helen said cheerfully, withdrawing a rolled piece of paper from her pocket and unfurling it. It seemed to be a receipt from a restaurant, with a signature at the bottom. “See? Unfortunately, we’re out of anesthetic, so try not to scream too loud.”

“The bullet’s close to the bone,” Michael said serenely, “so -”

“ _ The bullet _ ?” Jon yelled. 

“You know what,” Martin said thoughtfully, looking at the ceiling, “now that I think about it, I do remember getting shot by a ghost bullet in India, and becoming intensely homicidal afterwards.”

“I’m sure it’s a coincidence,” Daisy panned. 

“ - so we’ll have to work fast.” Michael looked around the filthy Archives, uncleaned since the clean-up crews after Gertrude died. “This is sterile enough. Daisy, keep the patient still. If he wriggles I might miss and perform emergency amputation instead.”

“You can’t sue him for malpractice because he’s not a real doctor,” Helen stage-whispered. 

“I think this has gotten a little out of control,” Melanie said, dazed, a second before realizing that this was actually happening. Helen was already stepping back, and Michael was flexing their hand to ripple into its long, skinny claws that mimicked Helen’s. Shit. She grabbed Basira’s shoulder, shaking her. “Basira, get the medical kit, the good one. Sasha, get 999 on the phone, tell them to send an ambulance. Jon, do  _ not  _ look -”

But Daisy had already wrapped her hands around Martin’s shoulders, keeping him firmly in place, and Jon had already unlooped his belt and shoved it between Martin’s teeth, and she was too late. 

Quick as lightning, Michael’s fingers flashed, and one long and skinny spear shot into Martin’s thigh. Martin screamed, a terrible and hoarse sound that oscillated from pain and surprise into a bellow of rage, and Daisy groaned as she fought to keep him still. Just as quickly, Michael’s finger slid out of Martin’s thigh, and under the striking fluorescent lights Melanie saw the gleam of light from a small metal bullet. 

Then Martin screamed again, a sound closer to an animal than a human, and he broke free of Daisy's grip. He dived forward, bringing the rolling chair rattling with him, and slammed bodily into Tim. Tim’s cane flew out of his hands as he collapsed under the weight, and his own scream was quickly choked off as Martin landed on top of him.

Before Melanie could move Sasha was there - ripping Martin off single-handedly with a grunt of exertion, kicking him solidly in the gut and throwing him away from Tim. Tim, from where he was sprawled on the floor, looked up at Sasha as she kicked away the flying desk chair and the rampaging homicidal maniac, and in the span of a second Melanie could have sworn that she saw something glittering in his eyes. 

Or maybe it was the glitter of blood. Because blood was  _ everywhere _ . 

“Well, that’s that!” Helen said cheerfully, as Daisy and Sasha started tag-teaming a brawl against a rampaging wounded Martin in the background. “Glad to have helped, as always! That’ll be one thousand quid, please.”

“Five thousand without insurance,” Michael said gracefully, slowly shrinking their hands back to normal size and dropping the bullet in their palm. To the background sounds of Martin’s guttural screams, they dropped it in Melanie’s hand. “To commemorate. Our wait times are much shorter than the NHS, so leave us a good review on Yelp.”

“Uh,” Melanie said, as Daisy piledrived a wounded Martin, “yeah. Thanks.”

“Happy to help,” Michael said, just as blood sprayed over Melanie’s hair. 

  
  
  


It took about two hours to mop up the Archives, patch up their wounded, and replace destroyed furniture. Coincidentally, that was about the length of time it took to churn Martin through A&E. Basira had gone with him, and they had forcibly kept Jon back. Maybe that was the wrong call - Jon was pacing a hole through the floor, annoying everybody, and Basira’s texted updates to the group chat were infuriatingly vague. 

**Basira:** docs were freaked over how quickly it healed up before i told them we were from tmi. after that they made the sign of the cross and avoided us. not as good drs as michael tbh

**Melanie:** hey has anybody noticed that our initials are TMI? Like, ‘Too much information’? Lmfaooo bc we’re subjects of the evil fear entity that pries your secrets from your cold de

**Melanie:** sorry, Tim stole my phone. How’s Martin?

**Basira:** INCREDIBLY bizarre. Freakish. I feel kinda unsafe next to him tbh

**Melanie:** !! do we have to send backup (daisy)?

**Basira:** Rich to assume that Daisy would provide physical or emotional support to anyone :/ but no i got it handled. hes still evil and everything but hes gotten a lot sneakier about it. Youll see what i mean when we get back. 

**Sasha:** Kinda fucked that getting stabbed doesn’t even warrant you a day off in this place. 

**Daisy:** THAT’S the fucked part?

It sucked when Sasha was right about something. She was so insufferable about it. And she was very frequently right. 

Still, everybody had silently agreed that they didn’t want to send Martin home only to stab a neighbor or something. If his quite frankly homicidal display earlier had meant anything - and the way he had almost thrown a paramedic into a wall - then the guy really had lost it. Understandable, rational, and normal, but inconvenient and dangerous for people who weren’t used to such things. 

At this point, Melanie wasn’t sure she could trust anybody who seemed normal. It would be more of a problem if she knew normal people, probably. 

Finally, as everybody exhaustedly collapsed on the floor of the cowpen after they finished cleaning up the Archives, the door rattled and creaked open. Everyone bolted upright, Daisy sleepily rolling off Jon and rubbing her eyes, and watched with bated breath the entrance of two familiar figures into the Archives.

First in was Basira, same was ever - expressionless, vaguely pissed off, tall and muscley. She was dragging in a shorter figure by his collar, a roundish man who could normally be seen hiding under large, strangely reflective glasses and a big jumper. His glasses and jumper had been lost in the fight, leaving him in nothing but jeans and a similarly fuzzy button-up. Without the glasses and the jumper, it took a second to even recognize him as Martin. 

“ _Don’t_ make any sudden moves,” Basira said, effortlessly depositing Martin at the fringe of the group. Martin scowled, adjusting the hem of his shirt as Basira crossed her arms. “ We have a situation.”

“There’s no - there’s no  _ situation _ ,” Martin sputtered. Melanie realized with a start that his tone of voice was slightly different. “I’m  _ fine _ . I’m fine, okay? I’m not going to hurt, or stab, or - or homicidal rage. How many times do I need to apologize before you believe me!”

“He apologized for the murder attempts,” Basira snitched, unimpressed. “He cried about it.”

“Did you have to put it like that -”

“Martin? Cry?” Melanie asked, with a sick fascination. Beside her, Jon’s face fell in betrayal. “Was it to get your guard down?”

“I was upset!” Martin yelled, voice creaking. “You ever wake up in a hospital bed covered in blood? It was freaky and disturbing! I was disoriented!”

Beside her, Tim was rubbing his jaw silently. He glanced at Melanie and grimaced, and Melanie couldn’t help but agree. Martin was acting strangely. Not normal strange, like homicidal or destructive, but bad strange. Incomprehensibly strange. He seemed stressed out and exhausted, and he still smelled faintly of blood. 

“Are we sure we got Martin back to normal?” Sasha asked dubiously. “He’s acting…”

“Normal! I’m acting  _ normal _ , thanks for asking!” Martin threw his hands up in exasperation, as Basira rolled her eyes beside him. “Did all of you guys think I was  _ really  _ like that? The knife collection didn’t - it didn’t alarm  _ any  _ of you?”

“You had the knife collection before the bullet,” Tim pointed out, unimpressed with Martin’s hysterics. Melanie had to agree; it wasn’t like him. “What was there to be alarmed about?”

Martin’s eye twitched. He took a calming breath in and out, which skeeved everybody out considerably. He met eyes with Jon for just a second, both of them looking upset, but Martin quickly broke it off. When he spoke again it was with a strained, false calm - alien and strange on Martin, who was normally very good at faking calm. “My name is Martin Blackwood,” he said, voice thin and strangled, “and I am not actually a homicidal maniac.”

Everybody stared at him. 

“No, mate, you got it wrong,” Tim stage-whispered. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Hi, I’m Martin Blackwood, and I’m a homicidal maniac’.”

“You’re shit at Fear Demons Anonymous,” Daisy agreed. 

“ _ I’m not a fucking fear demon _ !”

“Not with that attitude,” Daisy said.

“I’m making some tea,” Martin said firmly, alarming absolutely everybody. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tea's probably poisoned...or IS it? If you enjoyed, remember to leave a comment and/or kudos!!


	4. Chapter 4

Eventually, they managed to wring some answers out of the strangely freaked Martin. 

It was incredibly creepy and worrying how Martin knew their tea orders, and nobody felt comfortable leaving him alone unattended with their food, so they all ended up awkwardly loitering in the kitchenette as Martin boiled water. Which was impressive, considering how hard his eye was twitching the entire time. 

He even brought out little tea biscuits. Sasha and Tim, sitting at the small table, overcame their differences to loudly comment on unsubtle assassination attempts. 

“I’m disappointed in you,” Melanie told Martin gravely, as he passed her a cup of Mango Black tea. “It’s kind of tasteless for a murder attempt to be this blatant.”

“It is just tea,” Martin said, for the twentieth time. “I make it when I’m stressed. I don’t want to kill anybody.”

“That’s not rational,” Basira said, sniffing her Darjeeling suspiciously. “Everybody wants to kill somebody.”

Strangely enough, it was Daisy and her cup of Apricot Vanilla White tea who came to Martin’s rescue. She was sitting next to Tim, and in an act of incredible and shocking bravery she was slowly actually sipping the tea. Across from her, Sasha was slowly dripping her Chai onto a ph strip and squinting. 

“How much do you remember, Blackwood?”

“All of it. None of it.” Martin’s expression crumpled, clenching the last empty mug tightly. It was Jon’s, with several cute cats printed on it - a gift from Georgie. “It’s like the last four years are just this weird haze of -”

“Four years? You were shot four  _ months  _ ago,” Sasha said. 

“I know,” Martin snapped. “It’s just this weird haze of...hatred and anger and violence. I feel like I spent the last four years drunk and I just sobered up. I remember all of it - I remember  _ you  _ guys - but it just seems so distant.” Martin squeezed the mug tightly, as if it could give any comfort. “I can’t believe I really did all of those things. It just doesn’t seem like me. I’m not that kind of person. Am I?”

“Mate,” Tim said, faux-sympathetically, “you totally are.”

“Can’t detect any poisons in the tea,” Sasha said briskly. “Must be in the mug.”

Basira poured her mug in the potted plant, maintaining eye contact with Martin the entire time. 

“Are you really not a fear demon anymore?” Jon asked, with sick fascination. He was lingering furthest away by the entrance, as if afraid to drift too close to Martin - a reasonable safety precaution, or an avoidance mechanism? “Is it that easy?”

“I...I don’t know.” Martin faltered, clenching the mug in his hands, and for the first time he met eyes with Jon. They both seemed mutually helpless: uncertain what to do with each other, or if there was anything that could be done. “Do you...want me to be?”

“Yes, obviously,” Jon said, apparently shocking Martin even as everybody else nodded. “I wouldn’t know  _ what  _ to do with a normal person.”

“I have a hypothesis,” Sasha said, bolting upright. “When you take into account the badly disguised attempt to murder us with tea -”

“ _ What  _ -”

“The confusion and disorientation, the deceitfulness, the new fake nice personality,  _ and  _ the inherent trauma of having Michael as a General Practitioner…” Sasha snapped her fingers in realization. “Martin was turned from a fear demon of Homicide into a fear demon of the Spiral!”

The heavy atmosphere of the room immediately lifted. Basira exhaled, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and Tim was nodding in realization. Sasha looked very proud of herself. Jon’s concerned expression had broken into a relieved smile, glad that Martin was still somebody he could understand. 

“That doesn’t seem quite right,” Daisy said, but nobody was paying attention. 

Martin groaned into his hand. “Guys, I swear -”

“Nobody listen to him, those Spiral types are chronic liars,” Sasha said, ignoring Martin’s offended sputter. “Do you consent to tests? I’ve been meaning to write a monograph on the effect of evil superpowers in mentally fragile adults.”

“What’ll you use as a control?” Basira asked. 

“Yeah, that’s kind of the issue right now.”

That was enough of that. Melanie put her undoubtedly poisoned tea down on the small table, clapping her hands. “Everybody but Martin and Jon out. Git, all of you. We need privacy.”

Tim raised his hand, grabbing his cane with the other. “Can we still listen at the -”

“Obviously you’re listening at the door, but everyone get out anyway.”

They got out, fleeing to the library - where, Melanie very well knew, if you pressed your ear against the far left patch of wall you could hear every conversation in the kitchenette perfectly. The entire Institute seemed designed like that: there wasn’t a single room in it that couldn’t be overheard from another room, no matter how secure you thought it was. Even the gender neutral bathroom was subject to a convoluted series of drainage pipes, where if you pressed your ear against a vent in a corner of Artifact Storage you could hear conversations in there too. And that wasn’t even getting  _ into  _ the tunnels, which were proving increasingly difficult to keep from an intrepid Sasha James. Melanie instinctually blamed Smirke, but she did have a habit of blaming him for everything. 

Finally, it was just her, Jon, and Martin left in the kitchenette and cowpen. The room was half-disrupted, papers and jackets left strewn everywhere in anxious anticipation for the Archives to return. Sasha’s desk was covered in teetering stacks of books and papers; Basira’s was coated in candy wrappers and empty packs of popcorn. Martin’s desk was mostly clean and tidy, save for a knife sharpener in the corner and a cleaning kit. Melanie saw Martin looking at it out of the corner of his eye: somewhat confused, mostly adrift. 

Melanie pointedly glared at both awkwardly loitering men until they slunk into the seats next to her at the table. They both avoided each other’s eyes, hesitant and uncertain. When Martin shifted in his seat, a white bandage flashed from underneath the rip in his trousers. 

“Therapy session, take two,” Melanie said crisply, and Martin groaned. “No complaining. This is important. What’s the goal of therapy for you two?”

“To convince you all that I don’t want to  _ kill  _ you?” Martin asked heatedly. He looked down at his hands, and seemed to belatedly realize that he hadn’t made any tea for Jon yet. He hopped back up, ignoring Melanie’s scowl, and rifled through the cabinets. 

“Hemlock’s in the fridge,” Jon suggested helpfully. 

“Thanks, Jon - are you even listening to me!”

“To be frank, I’m rather concerned,” Jon told Melanie, folding his arms on the rickety table. “I like Helen and Michael well enough, but too much time around one of those Spiral demons tends to give me a headache. I like men who make sense, you know? I can adapt no problem, but it’ll require an adjustment period. A re-negotiation of our relationship might be in order.”

“Spiral guys love ‘em and leave ‘em,” Melanie agreed, unfortunately flashing back to Mike Crew’s extensive rant two weeks ago in the pub about his love life. “Martin, if you’ve developed commitment issues it’s best to speak up now.” Martin’s eyebrow twitched as he poured the boiling water over the teabag, and Melanie sighed. “It sounds as if you’ve been lying to yourself for a long time, Martin. What was it you said - that you’ve been invested in coming across as ‘normal’, right?” Martin didn’t say anything, somewhat incriminatingly. “It’s no use trying to run impression management now. We’ve all seen you at your peak homicidal. You can’t surprise us anymore. Be yourself.”

That was good therapy advice. Melanie nodded sagely, trying to seem as if she knew what she was talking about. Beside her, Jon was nodding in agreement. But Martin just glanced backwards at her, as if he was surprised. As if that hadn’t been what he had expected her to say at all. 

“You’ve never met me,” Martin said weakly. “The real me, I mean.”

But he walked over and put the mug in front of Jon anyway, who just smiled faintly at him - cautious, hesitant, real. “I’ve systematically and violently destroyed your emotional barriers against intimacy, haven’t I? That’s what healthy relationships are all about.”

“Your idea of a healthy relationship is demented,” Martin said faintly. 

Jon drank the tea, fully expecting it to be poisoned, and Melanie watched as his face creased in surprise. He looked down at the mug, then back up at Martin, jaw lax in shock. “It’s good!”

“You took your antitoxin before coming into work, right?” Melanie asked.

“What am I, an amateur?”

But the tea really was good, and Martin flushed and stuttered as he promised Jon that there would be no more murder attempts, yes, Jon, that was a good thing - well, fine, maybe with a safe word - you like lemon, right? Would you like lemon? Not as a safe word, as a fruit -

Melanie slapped the lemon out of Jon’s hands anyway. Just in case. 

  
  
  
  


“So that’s it? Martin’s cured?”

Melanie shrugged awkwardly, careful not to jostle anything. The thin blanket spread over the ground did little to cushion them from the cold and hard dirt, but the sun was light and tingly on Melanie’s skin and scraps of clouds drifted lazily across the sky. It made everything in her body unwind and uncoil, her muscles limp and relaxed.

“I guess? He’s not openly homicidal anymore, if that’s what you’re asking. Nobody’s quite figured out yet if he’s subtly homicidal now, so the jury’s still out on that one. He hasn’t vocalized a hankering for trauma either, but the Spiral types have always been weird about that.”

“You know, I’m not so sure he’s actually Spiral.”

“Neither am I, but don’t tell the others. I think they’d freak.”

Georgie hummed. She was running her small and soft fingers through Melanie’s hair: starting at the scalp, then pulling them through to the ends. Melanie had been thinking of getting it cut for a while, always unwilling to go through the time and energy to maintain the curls, but something about the way Georgie would run her fingers through it always convinced her otherwise. It made her spine tingle, and in a strange way the movement matched the feeling of sun on her face. 

“I guess that’s it, then,” Georgie mused. Her fingers twisted around one of Melanie’s curls, and she patiently untangled them. “Jon and Martin are working out their differences. Hopefully they keep the murder attempts to the bedroom from now on. Martin’s back to a normal level of insane and homicidal. I don’t think it’s healthy to be all sneaky about it, but I guess whatever works for him. To be honest, I’m surprised. Normally these stories don’t have happy endings.”

If anybody knew, Georgie would. She had a story for every occasion, all of them with a disappointing ending. Melanie hummed in assent, and Georgie fell silent. The wind blew loosely, sending the leaves in the trees shifting and rustling, and the air grew just a little cooler. It was April, the death of spring, and the world was warming back into summer. 

Melanie and Georgie always tried to take at least one day on the weekends just to spend with each other. It wasn’t always possible - Georgie’s work took her everywhere - but when Georgie was home, they spent as much time together as they could. Even if that day was just spent in the park, watching the clouds drift by and thumbing through a well-worn probably not supernatural book, it was worth it to the both of them. 

The moment was perfect to Melanie, and it made something strange and powerful settle in her heart. It was too complicated to put into words, or maybe too simple. The faces of her friends ran through her mind: Tim’s increasingly desperate nihilist rants, Sasha’s feelings bolted tight underneath everything. Daisy’s open and powerful affection, and the depression that strangled it. 

They all had serious problems. But they always had, right? None of them had ever really made it through life  _ happily _ . But who did? 

“Why not?” Melanie asked. Georgie hummed a wordless question, and she quickly elaborated. “Why isn’t there ever a happy ending?”

“Life’s dangerous and it sucks?”

“Well, yeah. But that’s not what I mean.” Melanie sat up, already mourning Georgie’s fingers in her hair, and twisted around to face her girlfriend. She was wearing overalls and thick boots, while Melanie was in her usual jeans and flannel. Butch for butch queens. “Remember months back when I got, like, super high and asked Gerry if there were any Stokers of peace and love?”

“Yeah. He laughed at you.”

“Which was rude! But I think High Melanie was onto something.”

“You’re very intelligent,” Georgie said loyally, before frowning. “I’ve definitely never run into a Barker of True Love, sad to say. Gerry or I would have realized if there was an Entity -”

“Stoker!”

“ - Entity of Love. It would be obvious, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Melanie refuted, already warming to the topic. She had been thinking about this, the idea percolating in the back of her mind for a long time. She wasn’t sure if she was on the right track, but - well, wasn’t it worth it to try? “The theory now is that Sto - Entities, whatever, arise  _ from  _ strong human emotions, right? Like, the Privacy entity didn’t create CCTV, CCTV created the Privacy entity. Humans all feel strongly about something, and it’s deposited in a...primordial global unconsciousness, which results in an extradimensional malevolent force.”

“Please don’t insinuate Jung was right,” Georgie said, pained. 

“Put me out of my misery if I do! But that is along the lines of the theory, right? It’s the powerful emotions of people.” Melanie waited until Georgie hesitantly nodded before continuing. “Which do you think is more powerful: fear or happiness?”

Georgie was silent for a long moment, chewing a fly-away curl of hair as she looked over the cusp of the hill over the park. “Hard question.”

“The world is hard and cruel and terrible,” Melanie said, and she found that her heart was thumping in her chest. “It just is. The bad seems so much more powerful than the good, and - and the evil malevolent forces that pretend to control our lives  _ are  _ powerful. But I don’t think bad’s more powerful than good. The worst things ever can happen to us, but even just the stupidest and smallest acts of good can outweigh the worst tragedy. My life could burn down around me, and so long as I had you I would be okay.”

“Aw, honey!”

“Tim’s experienced six months of absolute torture. But he still laughs at dumb cartoons. The Buried wasn’t stronger than him, and the Hunt isn’t either.” Melanie bit her lip, deep in thought. “In that coffin with him, I felt something. I felt as if...so long as I wanted something hard enough, I could have it. That if I wanted things to be okay enough, then they would be okay. Isn’t that weird?”

“It’s not so weird to feel that way,” Georgie said, “but there’s never been any evidence that a...reverse-Entity exists.”

“Then we make one!” Melanie burst out, surprising herself. “Every entity exists because we believe it does. It’s people who make the entities, not the other way around. Why can’t we decide what we make?”

“So what?” Georgie asked skeptically. “People just concentrate really hard and make an Entity of Peace and Love?”

Maybe she wasn’t explaining herself right. But Melanie found herself getting fired up, sitting up straighter and letting the wind tousle her hair. “Why not? People concentrated hard and made an entity of Oh No, Fire. Look, Georgie, I…” She opened her mouth, then closed it again, frustrated. “I don’t think love, and happiness, and hope aren’t meaningful. I don’t think they’re  _ less  _ meaningful than fear, and sadness, and pain. I can’t believe it! I can’t spend the rest of my life working dead-end jobs, never really doing what I want to do, wasting fifty more years of labor just to never be able to retire, if I can’t believe that it’s  _ worth  _ it!”

“Melanie…”

She was getting choked up, but she didn’t care. The coffin pressed in on her, how it felt in that infinite nothing - as if only she was left, and the world was gone. “The bad doesn’t outweigh all the good, but - but the bad doesn’t make the good meaningless, either! I think good is more powerful than bad, because - because a little bit of good can make a bad life worth it. Okay? I just can’t believe that fear and pain and sadness is more powerful than courage and warmth and happiness. Life is hard and painful, everybody knows that, but the people we care about make it worth it. It’s so small in comparison to the enormity of sadness we all live with, but it’s enough.” She reached out and tucked some of Georgie’s flyaway curls behind her ear, and she couldn’t help but smile. She was so pretty, and she was Melanie’s. “The Entity of Love exists because I say it does. The Entity of Love exists because I am the Entity of Love. Me and you. Us.”

Georgie leaned forward and kissed her, and Melanie kissed back, and in that moment she really did feel it: that Entity of Love, that power of love and peace and contentment that had to be a thousand times more powerful than pain. 

When they separated Georgie looked a little misty, but a little sad too. “But you know everything doesn’t work like that, Melanie,” she said softly. “I’m worried about you. You can’t heal everything around you just by wanting it bad enough. And you can’t make everybody’s decisions for them. Sometimes you have to leave people to their own bad choices.”

“Maybe,” Melanie said, “but I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t even try.”

But even as she said it, she knew Georgie was right. 

They didn’t talk any more of work that day, of fear and pain and sadness that proved so much more threatening and scary than anything good. Melanie lay back down on the grass, her head in Georgie’s lap, and they let the rest of the day pass that way. 

  
  
  
  


Despite her heart-warming romantic monologues, Melanie couldn’t help but worry. 

She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t an accredited therapist, and her friends had  _ serious  _ issues that even an actual therapist wouldn’t be able to fix. Maybe the therapist angle wasn’t even necessary - they had all managed to terrorize plenty of people while severely mentally ill, and one could argue that mental illness enhanced the experience - but Melanie kind of had the feeling that she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life taking out her mental illness on other people. Their lifestyle just wasn’t sustainable. 

What Melanie wanted was a happily ever after. There had been way too much bullshit over the past few years, and she was sick of it. She had to nip this in the bud. No more murder attempts, no more coffins, no more Elias. If she let this continue, then they’d be in Season 10 of their workplace comedy and everybody would be running around with the exact same problems. They all had to grow up, and Melanie was going to force the issue. 

A happily ever after didn’t seem like too much to ask for. But Melanie knew, better than most, that they lived in a world where bad things happen to good people for no reason. Michael hadn’t deserved to be eaten by Helen, and Helen hadn’t deserved to be sacrificed by Gertrude. Tim was a truly atrocious person, but  _ nobody  _ deserved six months of torture. And sometimes bad people, like Elias and Peter, lived every day in perfect comfort. It wasn’t fair.

Nobody said life had to be fair. But nobody said that there had to be malevolent forces of evil making everybody miserable either. 

And nobody said that Melanie had to take all of this  _ lying down. _

Melanie walked into work at nine o’ clock sharp, freed of her obligation to avoid Elias. On some level, she almost missed the gymnastics routine she used to do in order to avoid him in the mornings. On the other hand, she had the sense that he was perfectly aware of the gymnastics routine and found it hilarious. She’d have to ask next Sunday. When she - ugh - visited him again. Why had she agreed to do that. Melanie wasn’t famous for her guilt over ruining people’s lives. 

She barely noticed the very plain-looking woman standing at the reception desk, speaking frantically to a bored Sabrina. She had shoulder length hair, faintly wavy and neatly brushed, and was wearing a very frumpy grey blazer and skirt. White, short-ish, and with an MLE accent, Melanie’s eyes glazed right over her - or they would have, if she hadn’t heard her name. 

“ - where Melanie King works? I just need to speak to the Archives, I promise. Can’t somebody show me directions?”

“I don’t know any Melanie King that works here,” Sabrina said, both bored and a little peeved. “And the Archives were defunded several months ago. Ma’am, are you sure you’re not in the wrong -”

“I’m not sure of anything! But really, I feel as if -”

“I’ll take her,” Melanie said quickly, popping up at Sabrina’s elbow. Sabrina did an obvious double-take, and Melanie grinned brightly as she clapped the woman’s shoulder. “I’m sure she’s just a lost grad student. I work at the library, I’ll show her up.” 

Then she steered the woman away very quickly, as to better preserve Melanie’s secret identity, and almost pushed her towards the stairs. The woman meekly let her, only turning around to face Melanie when they entered the stairwell. She gasped in awe and excitement, and for the first time Melanie saw her eyes. 

They were...deeply, deeply strange. Dark blue, almost black, Melanie could have sworn that there were stars glimmering deeply in them. If she stared too long, it was as if she could fall in, and really was that such a bad thing -

“It’s really you! Melanie King! This is so exciting. I’m such a huge fan of your show. Thank you so much for showing me down, I get lost so easily. I never know where I am!”

“If you’re a fear demon with the Spiral we already have four of those, and I hate for my show to get repetitive,” Melanie said bluntly, tearing her gaze away from the woman. She gestured her down the stairs, and the woman babbled happily as her voice echoed strangely throughout the narrow stairwell. 

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Ms. King. Everything’s so repetitive, you’d hardly notice. How many times have you walked through that lobby? Seven hundred eighty six, if you didn’t know. That’s such a big number it’s hard to even imagine it. I like imagining it, though. I like counting to seven hundred eighty six. I can count right now, if you want -”

Melanie opened the door to the stairwell, letting the woman out first, and grouchily marched her down the hallway to the archives. “Look, the Archives are kind of a disaster zone right now, so we may not be really set up for another interview -”

Melanie opened the door to the Archives, quickly shepherding the woman inside, who somehow had not stopped talking.

“But you’ll want to talk to me,” the woman said cheerfully, as she was ungraciously shoved inside the Archives. “Say, why did the receptionist not know the Archives existed? It’s quite - oh, it looks so different!”

That stopped Melanie short. She stopped in the entranceway, double-checking the room to make sure that Martin hadn’t burned it down. But it looked just the same as ever - strewn blankets, jackets, and food wrappers everywhere. The door to Jon’s office was open, the sound of him and Martin talking drifting through the room. The door to the library was propped open too, suggesting that Tim and Sasha were inside. Basira was sitting at her desk, dramatically writing something in a journal - judging by the number of torn-out pages around her, it was a love confession - before looking up at the new arrival. 

“The rest of the Institute doesn’t know we exist and we like it that way,” Basira said flatly, closing her journal. “It’s been a while since we had an interviewee.”

Melanie sighed, closing the door behind her as the woman looking around the room with wide eyes. “I think after the Prentiss interview our viewers started getting the impression that it was ‘dangerous’ or whatever.” She made sarcastic air-quotes around the word. “Please. Prentiss deserved what we did to her.”

“Shit was gross,” Basira agreed, poking the little mason jar of worms that lived on Martin’s desk. They wriggled in desolate agony. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Sarah Carpenter,” the woman said, just as Sasha poked her head out of the library. Sasha’s eyes widened. “This place has changed so much. So many more scorch marks.”

“The ex-Assistant?” Sasha demanded, jumping into the cow-pen. She had a pen shoved behind her ear, and a smear of dry-erase marker on her hand. “The same one fear demon’d by Fiona Law? How are you still alive?”

“I decided I didn’t care if I lived or died, so I couldn’t die anymore,” Sarah Carpenter said promptly, as if this was an answer. 

Tim appeared behind Sasha, without his cane but limping slightly. “The woman with the cursed star map, right? That’d be - what’d we call them, Sasha, fear of heights?”

“We call ourselves the Falling Titan, actually -”

“That’s stupid,” Basira said flatly. “Fear of heights? Pussy fear.”

“I would say it’s more akin to the fear of being insignificant, generic, just one in a meaningless crowd, doomed to obscurity,” Sarah hinted desperately. 

“I’m gay, can’t relate,” Melanie said. 

“Conformity’s a good thing,” Sasha said defensively, as Tim nodded, before looking guilty over nodding and shaking his head. 

Jon poked his head out from the office, followed swiftly by a terrified Martin. He brightened when seeing the newcomer. Maybe Melanie would be nice and let him flex his interview skills. “A guest! Wonderful, I was afraid today would be boring. Martin, could you make her some tea?”

“Kind of rude to poison someone the minute they walk through our doors,” Basira said disapprovingly, before pausing a beat. “Prudent, though.”

“You can poison me if you want,” Sarah said cheerfully. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“You all seemed more normal yesterday,” Martin said, disappointed. 

After ten minutes of hustle and bustle, including poisoned tea, non-poisoned tea, dragging Sasha away from asking their guest intrusive and boring questions about verifying several statements, and giving Tim a knife to make him feel better about strangers, Melanie found herself in the recording room. For once, she was behind the camera, taking Daisy’s usual spot. 

Today was Jon’s time to shine: filled with vim, vigor, and his mysteriously appearing tape recorders that Martin quickly scooped up and appraised, he was sitting next to Sarah Carpenter and doing his best Big Boy Expression. Martin gave him an encouraging smile and thumbs up from next to Basira, which made her sneer in disgust and slide away from him. 

“This is the consent form to appear on air, not get mad at us if we hurt your feelings or traumatize you, the usual,” Sasha said cheerfully, sliding the paper across the table and letting Sarah sign it. “Also an NDA. Don’t tell anyone we exist.”

“Why can’t -”

“After Peter took over Daisy moved a  _ lot  _ of money around,” Basira said, bored. “Turns out she has a finance degree? Whatever. Anyway, she invented some kind of garbage nonsense department -”

“Human resources,” Jon volunteered. 

“Sure, whatever. Then she funneled a shitton of money into us for our salaries and sent out an announcement that the Archives had been shut down. We never really interacted with anybody else who works here anyway, so it worked out fine.”

“What about the statements?” Sarah asked, fascinated. “That’s why the Institute exists, to take statements from people.”

Basira shrugged. “We told Research to research them and Intake to just shove the statement and the research into the library. Most people just used this place as a supernatural library anyway. Place’s been getting along just fine without us for three years, so it’s not that much of a lifestyle change.”

“I have to fake being a grad student just to get access to the statements now,” Sasha mourned. “It’s really annoying.”

“Jon, confiscate her fake ID,” Melanie instructed, ignoring Sasha’s offended squawk as Jon saluted. “How many times do I have to say it, those statements rot your brain. Like violent video games.”

“Wait,” Martin said, “do I even  _ legally  _ work -”

“What do you do when someone files an HR complaint?” Sarah asked. 

“Laugh, mostly. Then fire the person they filed a complaint against.” Melanie shrugged. “Doing them a favor, honestly.” 

“Martin acts as bouncer,” Jon volunteered. 

“Yeah,” Martin said, pained, “we’re going to have to find a new bouncer.”

“Enough chat,” Melanie called, clapping her hands as Sasha snatched the NDA back. “Ready, set, action!”

Silently, almost unnoticed, the tape deck clicked on and started whirring. 

Jon offered a big smile to the camera, only slightly pained - like all of Jon’s smiles. They were still working on getting him comfortable in front of a camera. Man was much more suited for the audio medium. Sarah looked a little dizzied by all of the typical Archives chaoticness, which made Melanie pity her. Gertrude’s Archives must have been extremely boring and banal, once you excluded all of the murder attempts. Melanie’d never want to work there. 

“Hello and welcome back to the show,” Jon said into the camera, offering a shy little wave. Their viewers loved Jon’s adorable, socially awkward charm. Many users praised him, calling him ‘nonthreatening’ and ‘himbo’. “Remember to hit that subscribe button and ring that bell if you haven’t yet. We’re, ah, working on opening a merch store, but some of the NDAs are proving it a difficult undertaking. And remember to subscribe to our Patreon! Anyway, today we have another exciting development for the channel. Everybody say hello to fear demon of the - sorry, what did you say you were fear demon of, again?”

“The Falling Titan, or the Awful Deep -”

“Fear of heights! Everyone welcome Sarah Carpenter.” Jon turned to Sarah as everyone clapped politely. “What’s your opinion on heights, Ms. Carpenter? Strongly positive? Neutral?”

He really was a pro at interviewing. Melanie was so proud of him. Sarah just smiled beatifically, not quite meeting Jon’s eyes. Sarah never seemed to meet anyone’s eyes, really, gaze always just a little off-center. It was probably for the best. 

“Strongly positive, of course. But is that really the question you want to ask me, Archivist?”

From where she was standing beside Melanie, Basira stiffened. Melanie didn’t blame her: it didn’t always end well when random demons called Jon by his stupid random demon title. Why couldn’t they call him King of the Eyes or something? Much more interesting. 

But Jon just looked a little flummoxed. “We tend to prefer semi-structured interviews here, letting the interviewee dictate the course of the session. Typically they just, uh, talk about whatever’s on their mind.”

“You have something you want to know,” Sarah Carpenter asked gently. “That’s why I’m here. So ask it.”

Jon stared at her, oddly still. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. Martin, from where he was lingering near the back of the room, wrung his hands a little, and Sasha bit her lip. 

Finally, Jon asked, “Why us?”

Silence stretched over the room. Melanie blinked in quiet shock. Why them? What a stupid question. Why them what? It didn’t make any sense. 

But Sarah just laughed, light and airy. “What a great question! Why you indeed. So you’ve noticed, then. We were afraid that you hadn’t. Have you realized how strange you are yet, Jon? How much this place has changed you?”

“Answer,” Jon said slowly, deliberately, purposefully, “the question.”

And she did. 

“I suppose you could say that I wanted this. Anybody who worked too long with Gertrude wanted this, you know. We all knew that there was something wrong with her. Something really, really deeply wrong with her. Mary liked it. She had always been attracted to danger, what with her choice in men. Such a gentle soul. Pity what happened to her.” Sarah sighed dreamily. “Pity what happened to me. But you could say that I chose that too. I stayed with Gertrude. We all did.”

There was a different air in the room, strange and tense. It felt like there was a storm coming, the faint tang of ozone in the air. And Jon’s eyes never shifted from Sarah’s, unblinking and fierce. 

“We didn’t really trust each other. Such a toxic work environment, really. Everybody was always back-stabbing each other. Gertrude encouraged it. She had always been quite the paranoid old bat, and she told us constantly to always be on our guards. That life was pain, and fighting, and turmoil, and we had to be tough to survive. After a while, it was my perspective too: that in order to survive, one must be tough. Resilient. Outlast your enemies, because you  _ will  _ have enemies. Life is awful, horrible, never-ending pain, and the best you can do is bear it.”

“You aren’t answering my question,” Jon cut in tersely. 

But Sarah just aimlessly waved a hand. “I’m getting there. After a while, we began to turn on each other. I don’t know if it was Gertrude’s attitude, or reading and researching those statements day in and day out, or James Wright’s  _ oppressive  _ gaze, or just the awful way this place felt. It started out just sniping at each other. Helen and I would fight, or Fiona and Emma would try to stab each other. You know, the usual. We all hated Emma the most, I think.” Her expression darkened. “She was so insufferable. She thought she was so smart, so talented. Such an intrepid little investigator. She loved  _ research  _ and  _ knowing  _ and  _ seeing _ . Try hard.”

Everybody stared at Sasha, who flushed. 

“So we started bullying her. Just for fun at first. Little stuff. Locking her out of the Archives, teasing her, giving her all the bad jobs. Then it just started escalating and escalating, as we kept trying to impress each other. Eventually, we were throwing her in every dangerous situation we could find, just to see her squirm.” Sarah laughed lightly, like the tinkling of bells. “That’s what this place does to you, you know. It makes you scared, first. Then it  _ really  _ gives you something to be frightened of. Then it makes you mean. Then it takes all that meanness and just pours it inwards and inwards, until you hate yourself as much as you hate everyone else. That’s when you get cruel. After that it just takes a little - push. A star map. A coffin.” She eyed Jon slyly. “All cruel people think the world is as cruel as they are. It’s hard to be a good person in a hard world. The worst people justify it to themselves by saying that if they’re bad - well, everybody else is worse.”

Tim blanched. Everybody looked very uncomfortable. 

“I remember the coffin,” Sarah said thoughtfully. “Haven’t thought of it in years, of course. Only just remembered when I saw it on your show. I was so surprised. We all dared Emma to go in, lied and said that Gertrude wanted us to try it. You could get anybody to do anything if you said that Gertrude wanted it. Emma stepped inside...one step, two...three...she disappeared from view. We never saw her again.” Sarah nodded slowly, lost in a memory. “None of us felt guilty. None of us had  _ done  _ it. When you do something all together, it’s the group’s fault. Collective responsibility. The Eye loves that, you know. We police ourselves. Social pressures are an incredible thing. The Hunt’s quite talented at it - the fear of being expelled from the group - but nothing can match the way that the Eye can make you feel constantly  _ seen _ . Constantly judged. Constantly torn apart, and found wanting.”

Everybody stared at Basira and Melanie, who tried not to feel very awkward. 

“That’s when I realized. How wonderful it was to get lost in a crowd. How fantastic it was, to be nobody at all. If you’re accepted, you can truly feel loved. When you’re part of something greater, you can rise from your body. Ever sing in a choir? Ever chant in a sports game? You’re something more than yourself. You’re free of sin, free of responsibility, free of pain.” She smiled at them, eyes distantly whirling stars. “Some of you are young. Young love can make two feel like one, just extensions of each other. How fantastic it is, how deeply you can feel loved, so long as you aren’t you.” She tittered lightly. “How sublime, to identify as something! To break down your identity into numbers and words. A group, that you can truly be a part of. You can be proud. What do we call ourselves? Cops? Lesbians? Men? English? White? How meaningless.”

“I’m not proud of the White thing,” Melanie said quickly, just so everyone knew. 

“But all perceptions of invulnerability fade fast. I always thought myself the oppressor, on top. But when we needed a new victim, they turned on me next.” Sarah sighed dreamily. “Fiona was the one who tricked me into reading the star map on that blustery cliff at night. The first time I ever truly saw the Milky Way, in all of its magnificence. When I realized what happened, I felt so betrayed. So insignificant. And in the emptiness inside me, the light poured in.” 

It almost would have been poetic, if not for...the craziness. When Melanie glanced behind her, she saw Tim grimacing and Sasha’s pen flying as she scribbled notes in her omnipresent little notebook. 

“From what I hear, we didn’t last long after that.” Sarah smiled, casual and happy. “Helen bumped off Fiona pretty soon after. Enlisted an old friend of ours, a messiah of the eternal flame named Dekker. Humorless man. And then there were two. After Sannikov Land, there was one. But Helen was always a real piece of work. I’m not surprised that she made it through to the other side.” Everybody nodded. Helen was terrible, but she was their terrible. “I don’t know what Gertrude did after that. I hear she ran off with her girlfriend, jet-set around the world in search of whatever it was that Gertrude was always looking for, but never found. I don’t know what help a pyromaniac nun could have served in Gertrude’s mission, but Gertrude and Sister Agnes defied sense. I always liked that about them.” She sighed dreamily. “Poor little Elias. He always did try so hard to keep us getting along.  _ That  _ didn’t last long, but those types never stay.”

“Thanks for the history lesson,” Jon asked dryly, even as Melanie reeled from the casual mention of their bastard boss. But hadn’t he been a filing clerk back then? “What’s your point?”

“In order to understand where you are, you must know where you came from,” Sarah said serenely. “These walls have a bloody and sad history. It drives people insane, you know. This place. It exposes people to the worst of the world, humanity, each other, and themselves. And they drown in it. What we once were, so you are. You can see it, can’t you? How you cannibalize each other?”

Everybody looked at each other uncomfortably. Tim and Sasha looked away from each other, pointedly. Martin looked fairly sick. But Melanie was deep in thought, tying together the strange threads of Sarah’s story. There was one piece missing. 

“What about Elias?” Melanie asked. 

Sarah smiled at her. “You ask much better questions than the Archivist does.” Jon sputtered in indignation, but she ignored him, instead looking directly at Melanie. Her gaze wasn’t focused or intent - it was unfocused, dreamy, and far away - but something about it was intense anyway. “He used to be different. But we all were, you know. Have you ever wondered why he killed Gertrude?”

“He’s an evil monster who enjoys murdering innocent people?” Tim asked flatly.

“It was the first step in a Machiavellian plan to psychologically torture Jon over the course of three years until he turned into the fear demon to end all fear demons?” Sasha asked eagerly, frightening Jon deeply. 

“Does anybody know what Elias wants?” Martin muttered under his breath, but it made everybody turn to him. He flushed, clearly unused to the attention, but set his jaw stubbornly. “Come on. He kills Gertrude, hires Jon to try and turn him into a fear demon but does a  _ really  _ bad job, blackmails Sasha and Tim, has Tim stop the Unknowing to  _ protect  _ Jon from being kidnapped, then lets himself get arrested?”

“We tricked him into getting arrested,” Basira said aggressively, “he didn’t let us do anything.”

Martin shot her a flat and impressively ‘you’re an idiot but I’m too polite to say it’ look, which was familiar to everybody in the room. “I have not met a single fear demon who doesn’t think themselves above the law. I’ve also never met a single one who was stupid enough to get himself arrested, much less one as successful and smart and Elias.” He paused a beat, almost hesitant. “I know when I was - uh, like that -”

“You mean yesterday?” Sasha asked. 

“I like to put my past behind me,” Martin said aggressively, which made everyone take a step back. “Point is, the law and rules and the world was - it was somebody else’s problem. Not mine. All you think about is yourself, and how  _ angry  _ you are, and -” But Jon was shooting him a tragic little look, and Martin cut himself off. He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “He has a plan. He has to. Everything he did to us, he’s not doing it randomly.”

But Basira just looked thoughtful. “What’s worse? If he’s evil and shitty to us for a point, or just because he feels like being evil and shitty?”

But Melanie was thinking about something else. A conversation, held a long time ago, with an evil little man who asked her what she would do, if her life was a lie. 

They had made a truce. Elias would stop fucking with her and her people, and she’d stop ruining his life. Even if Elias was controlling the prison, she really did doubt that he had completely gone along with the whole getting arrested thing. Melanie was reasonably sure - as sure as anybody could get when it came to Elias - that he was going to honor his word and leave them alone. 

She had the feeling that Elias wanted them to think he had a plan. Maybe at one point he had. She should probably make an effort to figure out, like, what it was. But did he have a plan now? 

If the point was to feed Jon statements until he became a nasty little fear demon, then he failed pretty bad at that. More than that - he had  _ given up  _ on that, ages ago. Jon was a freak, but he was hardly an evil freak. There was nobody in the Archives less evil, really (Their most evil member was Martin, then the pigs just under him, then Basira, then Daisy, then Melanie, and Jon at the bottom as least evil). 

He hadn’t even been trying. Why had he let himself get arrested, and stay arrested? Why put Peter Lukas in charge of the Institute? Why kill Gertrude? 

What did any of this have to do with them? The placement of them all within the Archives could only be purposeful - Elias had hired Martin directly, and strongarmed Sasha and Tim into their own jobs. Why?

“Why us,” Melanie murmured. 

Sarah laughed again. “Finally, the right question!” 

“...that’s  _ exactly  _ the question I asked -”

“It’s because you’re all terrible people,” Sarah said cheerfully. 

Everybody stared at her. 

“Okay,” Basira said slowly, “something we  _ don’t  _ know?”

“And you’re lonely.” Sarah propped an elbow on the table and put her chin in her hand, looking over all of them with an air that was almost fond. “Lonely, desperate, sad people. None of you have families. None of you had anything in your life worth living for. Slogging your way through depression or anger or even just that creeping ennui. The Entities that pry us open and tear us apart love people like you. Think of it as an experiment: lock seven terrible people in a room, sprinkle in a lot of stress, and see what monsters you get out of the equation.” She grinned again, but this time it was a baring of teeth. “I think Elias just wanted to see you all cannibalize each other. The same way James Wright chose us. The more things change, I suppose.”

“That’s not true.”

For a second Melanie thought that she had said it, had vocalized the thrumming voice inside of her that denied what Sarah was saying, but she realized it had been Tim instead. He had stepped forward until he was in the shot, leaning over the table and pressing his hands against the smooth wood. 

“It’s not true,” Tim repeated. “We aren’t you and your horrid little group of terrible people. There’s good people in this room -” Tim glanced backwards - at Melanie, and then at Sasha. “ - and they care about each other more than they should. Terrible people stick together. There’s nothing you can say that would make us hurt each other.”

“That’s pretty rich coming from you, don’t you think?”

Tim froze, and it was only then that Melanie realized his mistake. He had looked into her eyes, and he kept looking. 

“People are all the same. You believed that, didn’t you?” Sarah’s voice was dreamy, but something about it was hypnotizing to Tim. Maybe to Melanie too, because she didn’t tear Tim away. “All criminals are the same - they deserve to die. All monsters are the same - cruel, relentless, inhuman things. They deserve to die too.” That scored a flinch. Tim’s fingers clenched, scraping against the wood. “You see it, as clearly as I do. It’s all in black and white. Enemy or ally. In that world there’s no room for grey.” Her voice lowered, gentle. “There’s no room for you.”

“I’m changing,” Tim said, voice hoarse and weak. “I am.”

“It’s funny,” Sarah said, “how you’ve only ever tried to protect one person, and you even failed at that. If you couldn’t even be good for her, what does that make you?” Her gaze skimmed the room, and lingered on Melanie. “How do you think you’ll fail the next one? How many people will you abandon?”

Tim reeled back, as if struck. Melanie fought the urge to glance backwards at Sasha, fought the urge to shake Tim and tell him to cut that hero worship shit out. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t -

A cold wind blew through the small, enclosed room, and Melanie felt the unmistakable brush of moisture in the air. She jerked backwards, instincts screaming, only to find Daisy standing in the back of the room, just in front of the closed door.

She looked terrified. When she saw that everybody was staring at her, she looked even worse. She tensed up, muscles locking in place, and Melanie saw what was going to happen before she did it. 

“Martin!” 

On cue, Martin reached out and grabbed Daisy’s arm, just as she made to surge for the door. Tim was backing away from Sarah, thin and bony limbs shaking uncontrollably, and Martin moved to stand in front of the doorway, blocking him in too. 

“Enough of this,” Melanie said fiercely, and with a hard stare froze Tim in place. When she spoke it was to Tim, to Daisy - to Basira and Sasha and Jon and Martin - but she kept her eyes on Sarah, letting herself fall inside that infinite void.

Let Sarah Carpenter see what was inside her. It wasn’t rot. It wasn’t an evil, cruel thing. It was a bright, shining light, and it was Melanie’s. 

“Don’t bully or torment my friends.”

“The Archives does attract -”

“Shut up, no one cares.” Melanie swallowed harshly, and tore her eyes away from Sarah. “I think people have the capability for great good, and great bad. Elias chose people who had the capability to be terrible, cruel, or - or monsters.” She decided to look at Tim instead, at Martin, at Jon. “But nobody  _ makes _ me do  _ shit _ . And nobody makes any of you do shit, okay? Maybe the - the hate and cruelty and awfulness of this place is so seeped in you can’t possibly get it out. But it’s not more powerful than the good we’re capable of. And it’s not more powerful than we are.” Melanie faltered a little bit, uncertainty creeping into her confidence. “And it’s not more powerful than how much we care about each other. Right? No matter how much shit keeps us apart, we stay together. Right?”

That was when Daisy ripped her arm free of Martin’s grip and bolted out the door. Basira called her name, running after her just as quickly. Tim shook his head, hands grasping his hair and hunching in on himself, and he bolted out the door with surprising speed too. Sasha’s expression crumpled, and she ran after him just as quickly as Basira had.

Well, Melanie thought to herself, that didn’t work. 

Sarah Carpenter stood up, her job done. She nodded at shell-shocked Jon with a smile, and waved jauntily at an unamused Martin.

“Why did you come?” Martin asked. “Why did you tell us all of this?”

Sarah straightened her skirt, and let a nostalgic smile flicker across her face. “The coffin got me nostalgic, is all. Isn’t it funny, how much we like revisiting our pasts, no matter how bad they are?” 

She left the way she came, and Melanie was left in a small and cramped room with one half-fear demon, one ex-fear demon, a running tape recorder, and a camcorder loyally churning away in its perpetual recording. 

“Well,” Jon said brightly, “how’d my first interview go?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WLW rights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for Lonely BS and (nonsexual) gendered violence.
> 
> This is my favorite chapter. Please leave a kudos and comment if you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Melanie decided to give Daisy, Basira, Sasha, and Tim some space. This was not because she was somebody who respected privacy, boundaries, and letting people sort out their own issues. This was mostly because she was moping. In this specific instance, curling up in a bean bag chair in the library texting her girlfriend and reading comforting fanfic on her mobile. 

**Melanie:** my inspirational speech didnt work

 **Melanie:** it was a GOOD ONE TOO! 

**Melanie:** is it because ive been doubting myself? Do i carry psychological weakness??

 **Georgie:** aw honey :(

 **Georgie:** I know you did the best you could. I bet it was a really good motivational speech, all your speeches are good and I love them :(

 **Georgie:** but maybe you can’t fix everything

Melanie refused to accept this reality. 

She needed her friends to be okay. She needed her team to be her team. They could handle anything, so long as they were together. That was what Tim had said, and he was right. Life was dangerous and scary and sometimes gave threatening interviews, but when they were together Melanie wasn’t scared. 

When they weren’t together, Melanie was always scared.

What was she doing. What was she thinking. Melanie sighed, curling up tighter on the beanbag. It wasn’t about her friends at all. It wasn’t about how much Tim needed Sasha to be happy, or how much Jon and Martin deserved to be together and happy without stupid fear demon stuff getting in the way. It wasn’t about Daisy and Basira, kept apart by a decade of refusing to admit what they both already knew. 

It was about Melanie, and the fact that she needed all of them. Sarah had been right. She had been lonely before then. She hadn’t really particularly been a person she was proud of, either. Her life had been little more than wading through a boring suburban life, dealing with teenage and young adult bitterness and anger, before growing up and finding herself navigating clown trauma and depression and grief. There hadn’t been any affection since Dad died. Mom had never shown any affection at all, even _before_ she died. No best friends, no exes, no anything. 

That had been the weakness Elias had preyed upon. The sheer certainty that, placed in a stressful and creepy situation, Melanie would turn on her equally creepy and mean coworkers and eat them alive. And she had - almost. 

There was so much bad in the world. There had been so much bad in her life. She missed her parents everyday. Her job was slightly unfulfilling and put her up against supernatural evils way too frequently. 

There was so much bad, and her friends had given her so much good. Her girlfriend had given her so much good, her financial security had let her buy nice food and little good things for herself. She liked walking to parks and reading books, or finding new hidden little shops in London (She had always taken Daisy along on those trips, because 45% of little hidden London antique shops were Evil). Her life was good, and Melanie couldn’t bear the thought of losing it. 

Wow, Melanie thought, wiping away the little stream of tears that was running down her face. When had that happened? Was she even still depressed? That was terrifying. She didn’t know how to live without being depressed. What did you do all day?

“Melanie?”

Shit. Melanie quickly scrubbed her face as casually as she could with her sleeve, uncurling from her ball and looking up to see a very anxious looking Sasha. She was shifting from foot to foot awkwardly, one hand playing with her hair. 

“You know, Sasha,” Melanie said flatly, “when you see somebody obviously curled up in a ball in a dark room crying, is your first instinct always to interrupt and embarrass them?”

“Sure is. They taught us the technique in cop school,” Sasha said, straight faced, and they both broke into a smile. She and Sasha teased each other quite a bit, because Sasha was terrible, but Melanie was a little terrible too. Words could not overemphasize how terrible Sasha was, though. In the terrible competition she definitely won. “But we do need you. We have...kind of have a situation.”

That could mean anything from ‘Martin’s handcuffed Jon to a chair leg and is trying to stab him again as Jon inventively twists himself into a pretzel to avoid it’ to ‘Helen’s here and she brought chainsaws and mimosas’. Melanie rolled to her feet, grimacing as her legs tingled. “Can’t Basira deal with it? I want to mope.”

“That’s the problem,” Sasha said, wringing her hands in distress. “Basira’s gone. And so is Daisy.”

Melanie blinked at her, confused. Of course they were gone, they had dramatically run out the door. “Are they finally fucking? If you hear noises from a broom closet don’t interrupt them, I’ve been waiting for this for years.”

But Sasha just shook her head. “I asked Jon where they were. And he _didn’t know_ . They’re not gone, they’re _gone_.”

Things happened rather quickly after that.

Melanie burst out of the library to see Jon sitting at Basira’s desk as Tim loomed over him with crossed arms, relentlessly asking questions. Martin was standing next to Jon, wringing his hands and occasionally shooting subtle glares at Tim that evoked his homicidal self. Jon looked a little harangued, and more than a little worried. 

“ - don’t know why you would expect _me_ to know,” Jon said, sounding harassed. “Maybe they’re making out or something. People make out.” He shot a sideways glance at Martin. “ _Most_ people.”

Martin wrung his hands, seemingly unable to decide between flustered at Jon or accusatory at Tim. “For the last time, I’m not using _butterfly knives_ to -”

“We never do anything fun anymore!”

“We can go to a nice arboretum,” Martin said desperately. 

Jon brightened. “The kind with flesh eating pla -”

“There’s no arboretums with flesh eating plants, Jon!”

“Actually,” Sasha piped up, popping out from behind Melanie, “Jared Hopworth’s started this grassroots initiative to -”

That was quite enough. Melanie clapped once and sharply, pulling everybody to stiff attention. “Tim, ease off Jon, he’s stupid and he doesn’t know what’s going on.” Tim scowled but stepped back immediately, ignoring Jon’s affront. “Jon, keep it to the bedroom. Martin, stop being an arse and pretend to stab your boyfriend. Sasha, how sure are we that they disappeared?”

“Pretty sure,” Sasha, holder of the brain cell, said firmly. “I even told Jon that Daisy wanted to explain the plot of Warrior Cats to him, and he didn’t know where to run off to.”

“Wait, were you lying about the Warrior Cats? We were working on some OCs -”

“Unless he’s hiding something,” Tim said, arms crossed in a way that was much less intimidating than it once was. “Which he _always_ is.”

Martin bristled. “Jon has no capability for deception!”

“It’s true,” Jon admitted. 

“Pretty hypocritical coming from the freaky little fear demon of the Spiral,” Tim sneered. 

“Pretty hypocritical from a guy who was trying to _kill_ us before he got eaten by dirt!”

“Pretty hypocritical from the guy who tried to kill us _yesterday_!”

“Boys, you’re both pretty,” Sasha said, exhausted. “Why don’t we both -”

“Stay _out_ of this, Sasha!” Tim snapped. 

Oh boy. That did it. Sasha’s expression darkened, and Tim immediately winced. “I think I’ve been doing plenty staying out of it for a week, Detective.”

That was when Martin bared his teeth and snarled at Tim, whose eyes glittered yellow and snarled back. Jesus, was Melanie’s life stupid. Even Sasha? 

Up to her, then. Melanie walked up to the miniature pissing match and roughly grabbed Tim by the collar. He went limp immediately, like a scruffed kitten, and let Melanie drag him away from the scene and deposit him next to an uncomfortable Sasha. 

“We do not harass members of the polycule,” Melanie said sternly. “It takes time away from harassing everybody else. Got it, Tim?”

Tim mumbled something that might be a yes. Good enough. 

“Now.” Melanie turned back around and frowned at Jon, crossing her arms. “What’s this about Daisy being gone?”

The thing with Jon was that as a fear demon he was completely useless, but as a key-finding device he was impe

ccable. Jon always knew where somebody was, especially if they were in the Institute, and he usually had a pretty good sense for if their favorite take-out place was open or not. He also rarely got lost, and was really good at giving presents. That might have just been Jon though. 

Jon was relatively oblivious to all of this. Melanie had known him long enough to tell that he was genuinely, actually pretty damn smart, but he was fairly crippled by the inability to hold a thought in his head for more than thirty seconds at a time. If something seemed like a good idea _now_ , Jon did it. If there were consequences for an action in the _future_ , then that was a problem for tomorrow Jon (or Melanie). Long-term planning, logical trains of thought, or a mouth filter were all beyond him. Melanie had never met a person with more ADHD, and she was working with Gerry to score him some Ritalin under the table. 

The fortunate and unfortunate side effect of this was that Jon _knew_ shit. He knew what time the Indian place closed, the distance from the sun to the Earth, or where Daisy had lost her keys for the tenth time. He just couldn’t _remember_ shit. Specifically, he couldn’t remember that he knew all of this. 

Which was why Jon hadn’t really found out that he had superpowers. Melanie had given up on trying to explain it to him. It probably wasn’t any of his business. 

“She just is,” Jon said, sounding more distressed than he probably meant to. “I’m sure she’s just - just somewhere else. I don’t know why you keep on expecting me to know -”

“Where do you feel like they are?” Melanie asked patiently. “Like, gun to your head, what’s your first instinct?”

Jon’s expression crumpled, and Melanie realized that he really was upset - even if he didn’t know why, or know how to put words to what he was feeling. “I feel like they’re not anywhere. Like they’re dead.”

Behind her, Sasha sucked in a deep breath, and Martin blanched. But Melanie was deep in thought, rubbing her chin. “You’ve been anxious about Daisy these last four months,” Melanie said slowly. “Have you been feeling this way about her a lot?”

Jon’s mouth opened a little in surprise, but he quickly nodded. “Not at first! It was about a month after she ditched us. I started feeling - I started getting worried about her. Sometimes I’d just panic and feel like...you know, she left. Or that she was gone.” Jon’s expression crumpled unhappily. “Do you have any idea how bad my abandonment issues are? They are so bad. It was upsetting, Melanie.”

Of course. It was obvious. 

As Martin patted Jon’s hand reassuringly and they both gave each other soppy looks, Melanie turned around until she was looking at the entire Archives - those who were here, anyway. Those who were still in this dimension. 

“I’m going to go get Daisy and Basira back,” Melanie said crisply. Both Sasha and Tim blanched. “I’ll be back...whenever. Everybody hold tight until then.”

Sasha bit viciously at one of her nails, ruining her manicure. “You know they’re in -”

“Duh. That’s why nobody’s coming with me.”

Tim bristled, but there was something strange in his eyes faintly tinged with yellow. “I’m coming with you. You need -”

“I don’t, actually. _You’re_ needed here. And I’m not letting you into another dimension so soon after your last one, you’ll get jet lag.” Melanie gave him a wan smile, but Tim just looked more upset. “Maybe they’re in there for fun. Honeymoon. It’s not dangerous.”

But they all knew she was lying. 

If she stayed any longer then they might try to talk her out of it, and Melanie was always most effective when she was working from flights of passion anyway. 

Besides. It had been a while since they had all started biting each other’s heads off like this, and not even in a friendly way. Or, in the case of Jon and Martin, in a kinky way. Something tasted rancid in here, and Melanie had a hypothesis why. 

If hypothesis was the right word. She was a film student.

She left Sasha in charge of the Archives, deeply wishing they had an Archival dog or something to put in charge instead. Normally the line of succession was Melanie, to Basira, to Daisy, to Sasha, to Martin (normal forme), to Tim, to Martin (beast forme), and then Jon at the bottom, but desperate times called for desperate measures. 

Almost as desperate as going to Peter Lukas for help.

She snuck upstairs, ignoring the anguished wails of Artifact Storage, and slid into the elevator. She ignored the curious looks of the other employees, who were all dressed in blazers and button-ups to her flannel and jeans, but her life was none of their business. They all stared harder when she jammed the button for the second floor. Melanie was beyond their judgement. They had not seen what she had seen. They probably didn’t even _know_ what knife monopoly was. 

The second floor was abandoned, as expected. Melanie even waved a hand around Daisy’s abandoned desk, just to check for any ghosts. Empty. No chill in the air. Should she have a ghost box? 

Come to think of it, this kind of was like ghost hunting. Melanie had wanted to start a ghosthunting show when she was in film school, some kind of half historical documentary half spectacle nonsense. Had dreamed of it all through that administrative assistant gig at an architecture firm that got her interested in architecture in the first place. Then...well, her dad got eaten by clowns, and Melanie wasn’t so worried about her stupid little ghost hunting show.

She had never even thought of a good name for it, anyway. 

She stalked down the dim and silent hallway, the thump of her trainers echoing down the marble. The eye tapestries seemed to loom and close in on her, trapping her in one spot like a bug on a pin. 

So she flipped them off. Choke on that, Elias. 

When Melanie burst open the door to Elias’ office, she hadn’t honestly been expecting to find anyone. She had been planning on trashing the place until her quarry showed up. If her quarry didn’t show up, then at least she’d have the satisfaction of nicking Elias’ comic books. But there was somebody inside, sitting at the grandiose desk with his thick and muddy boots smudging the wood and squinting at a little sea compass. 

“What a surprise,” Peter Lukas said. “Can’t believe you’re here.”

“You need to do something for me,” Melanie said bluntly. She stalked across the room, purposely messing up the elegant rug marked with - you guessed it - a lot of little eyes. Guy had a theme. “And you have to do it now.”

Peter Lukas arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m well aware. I wouldn’t be sitting around in this drafty old office if I wasn’t. And honestly, don’t they teach young women manners these days? You didn’t even knock.”

Melanie stood in front of the heavy wooden desk, and purposefully spread her hands on it and leaned in. She couldn’t exactly loom, but she could do her best.

Satisfyingly, Peter Lukas leaned back. Terrifying people didn’t come naturally to her, but all skills needed to be cultivated. 

“I need you to get Daisy and Basira out of the fog dimension or whatever.”

“The secret world maintained by my family for generations is not a fog dimension,” Peter said testily. “It’s a testament to the loneliness inherent to man.”

“What’s with you and loneliness?” Melanie asked, frustrated. “I thought your theme was...boats?” She squinted at Peter. “Are you a fear demon for that space, lost in a crowd, really big ocean crew? Because we just had one and she was kind of a bitch.”

“Boats can be very lonely,” Peter said testily. “How have you worked at this Institute for - what, three years? Three years, in the _Archives_ , and you don’t even seem to know anything!”

“I know what’s important,” Melanie said, faux-apologetically, “and you aren’t really it.”

But, strangely enough, this just seemed to make Peter Lukas smile. Oh, no. “Any more aspersions on my character? I’m all ears. You can try negging, Elias loves that one.”

Oh no. A terrible possibility began to occur to Melanie. She frantically changed tracks. “What’s with you and Elias, anyway? Dude hates you.”

Peter sighed dreamily. “Elias Bouchard. Man of my dreams. Sublime. You could drown in his eyes, you know. Many have. We met at a funeral, if you can believe it.”

“Did he kill the guy?”

“It was James Wright’s funeral, so I’d say it was the other way around.” Peter laughed softly, playing with his compass that always seemed to point, unerringly, east. “He hates my guts, of course. The most he’ll interact with me is a bet. My darling Elias is a bit of a risk taker, one might say! He never gambles with anything less than his life. He always takes the long odds. But he always wins. I do so love how he stacks the deck.” Peter smiled fondly, and Melanie was super grossed out. “Every time he turns me down I just feel _so_ lonely.”

Okay. Freak. 

But something about that weird love spiel stuck out to Melanie. “He told me that he lost the bet that let you take over the Institute for eight months.” 

Peter just laughed again, sharper this time, closer to a bark of amusement. “Are you kidding? As if I’d do all of this _voluntarily_? No way. I got better things to do, like stare at boats. Wherever we are, Melanie, is exactly where Elias wants us to be.” He sighed again. “Hot. Wish he’d return my calls. I should keep calling him, so I can hear the sweet sounds of his dial tone.”

That...was a lot to unpack, and Melanie didn’t have time for any of this right now. From the ‘this is Elias’ secret plot all along’ bit to the ‘murdersexual’ bit, she had other priorities. 

“I need you to pull Daisy and Basira out,” Melanie said urgently, throwing out the whole suitcase. “They’re trapped in your dumb fog dimension.”

But Peter just arched an eyebrow, leaning back in his chair. “What makes you say that? Maybe they’re out for a stroll in the tunnels.”

Sasha’s maintenance hallways? Whatever, if it was important she’d find out. “They aren’t,” Melanie said, frustrated. “Jon always knows -”

“Jon, Jon, Jon! I’m not talking to Jon.” Peter waggled his eyebrow at her, as if it made him look cool. He strongly gave off the impression of an idiot who tried very hard to look cool. “I’m talking to you. So Jon gave you a clue. Maybe they’re in there for a stroll. How did you know that they’re trapped? They’ve only been gone for twenty minutes.”

Melanie opened her mouth, then closed it. She didn’t like the implications of this. “I just do. Like how I knew how to save Tim. I just knew.”

“You’re always looking at life through a camera, Melanie. Film’s easy that way. You can change the narrative to be whatever you want. You can change the world just as you please.” Peter Lukas’ misty blue eyes glinted at her, and Melanie fought a shiver. “I really hate people like you, you know.”

“Rude?”

“People who think that the key to everything is _friendship_ and _love_ and _glitter_ ,” Peter sneered. “That’s not life. Life is boring, meaningless shit happens, then you die!” He shrugged expansively, with a ‘what can you do!’ expression. “That’s all there is to it. And you used to know that, didn’t you? You never cared about anybody but yourself. That’s how you survived so long, right? Worshipping your loneliness until it was more _you_ than you were? We’re pretty similar, in the end.” Peter rolled his eyes, as if Melanie’s life was a particularly cringey video. “Then you got all of these ideas. Peace and love and shit like that. You had a destiny, Melanie. You could have been the greatest of us, you know? Angry, bitter, lonely. So invasive, so relentless, so manipulative and cruel. Every evil of man was in you, Melanie. And then you told us to go fuck ourselves. As if we get to _choose_.” He lowered his legs to the floor and leaned in, and Melanie was paralyzed in every way. He put his compass on the table, pointing unerringly east. “What heart heard of, ghost guessed. Daisy and Tim know better than anyone. So do Martin and Basira. Jon’s too stupid to know anything, honestly. Your girlfriend’s an adrenaline junkie, not a hero. All of your little crew knows what you refuse to accept: that there is no choice in your fates. Not when you work at the Magnus Institute. But Melanie King, twister of reality to fit her little needs, refuses to see it.” 

Peter Lukas raised a hand, fingers poised to snap, and Melanie realized what he was about to do a second before he did it. “And that _really_ pisses me off. Bye now.”

That second wasn’t long enough to escape. It was only long enough to dive forward and snap up the compass, cradling it close to her chest, as the fog billowed and swelled until it overwhelmed her. It crested over her head and crashed over her, the power sweeping her away, until everything was grey and fog and cold, and Melanie knew nothing else. 

  
  
  
  
  


Melanie washed up on a beach. 

A cold wind blew, making her shiver, and when Melanie moved her tongue she found gritty sand sticking to the roof of her mouth. Gross, gross!

Melanie groaned, rolling onto her back and scrubbing her face with her unfortunately sandy flannel sleeve before wrenching open her eyes. She felt disgusting, wet and cold and dirty with sand. She stared straight up at a signature English grey sky, stretching on forever. There were no clouds - no, there was nothing but clouds. But they weren’t moving, even as the wind blew loudly. 

She forced herself to her feet and looked around. Fog, a lot of it. She could faintly make out a cobblestone road snaking into the fog, and a darker grey shape towering in the distance. It was shaped a little like a lighthouse, but it was unlit. Waves crashed on the shore and freezing water soaked her trainers. In that direction there was nothing but endless sea, and the knowledge that you were alone.

She was lost. She couldn’t see shit. She had no idea where Daisy and Basira even were. She had nothing but a poky little ocean compass, clenched tightly in her fist. 

Melanie shivered. Well. She had known that this might happen. It wasn’t her preferred outcome - she had very much been hoping that Peter Lukas would have an attack of the nice and snap Daisy and Basira back - but she knew the way her life tended to go. It was inevitable. 

Melanie flicked the compass open, and watched the needle spin and spin. For a second she was afraid that it would never stop - that there was no direction here, no north or west or up or down. No here, no there, no then and now. Like the endless expanse of dirt and suffocated moans, like that long fall, there was nothing of meaning that could give any direction at all. No exit. Maybe hell _isn’t_ other people. 

Then the needle slowed, and jittered to a halt. It bounced and swerved, but it pointed steadily in one direction. East. 

Better get walking.

  
  
  


An extensive period of time later, she was tired of walking. 

Not physically tired. But stress had a way of exhausting you. It was hard not to feel terrified in here - the cold air and the wind kept stealing the breath from her lungs, and it was constantly nerve wracking never seeing more than a foot in front of your face. Sometimes things chittered in the fog, just enough to make Melanie jump, but never staying long enough to be sure you weren’t hearing things. Sometimes she saw familiar faces in the fog - Mum, Dad - before they faded away. Just an illusion. 

If she kept going east, Melanie repeated to herself, she couldn’t get lost. That was how directions worked. It was, like, a rule or something. Right? 

Melanie stopped, almost tripping over a loose cobblestone. What was she doing? This place was messing with her brain. What was this uncertainty? Melanie didn’t do _uncertain_ . She didn’t do _maybes_ . She didn’t do _maybe this is a bad idea_ or _maybe I’m wrong_. Melanie stuck to her guns. She was stubborn. She was -

She was fooling herself. All she did was lie to herself. That wasn’t certainty, that was denial. Fake it til you make it. It was never anything more. 

The Stokers weren’t real. Why? She didn’t want to deal with them.

The Statements weren’t important. Why? They said shit she didn’t like hearing. 

Jon was an uncomplicated jerk, the Detective and Constable couldn’t hurt them, Stoker and James didn’t deserve her pity, Tim was sane and Martin wasn’t homicidal and Daisy wasn’t falling apart and -

And she could help. She could do something for them, save them like they had saved her. Couldn’t she? 

Georgie loved her. Didn’t she?

The fog settled on her skin, seeped into her clothes. It made her shiver, hugging herself as she drew in tighter. Like an excited dog, it jumped up against her waist and receded before jumping up again. It could drown her, if it wanted. If she wanted. 

It was so cold in here…

Of course the dirt Stoker hadn’t done shit to her. Melanie wasn’t fucking claustrophobic. But she had spent half her life being _super_ depressed, and she was so lonely, all the time…

Why was she here? Who was she looking for again? Somebody, some friends. Old friends, maybe her best friends. Weren’t they? 

Where was Georgie? Melanie wanted Georgie. She was cold. When she looked around, desperately searching for Georgie, she couldn’t see the path. All she could see was fog. 

Melanie tried to call Georgie’s name, but her voice was hoarse and weak, and her throat was dry. It was like the fog didn’t want her to call out. Like it didn’t want Georgie here. 

Georgie. Smooth and soft hands. Thighs to sink your fingers into and grip, a soft belly to press your hand against. Shoulders to massage, muscular biceps that she loved feeling up. Painted nails, always black or red depending on her outfit. They were the only two colours she owned, it was so ridiculous. She could afford more colors, why didn’t she buy more! Girl had ten shades of red! What was the difference between burgundy and magenta?

The fog didn’t want her to yell for her girlfriend? _The fog was homophobic_?

“Gay rights!” Melanie screamed, as loudly as possible. The fog swallowed up the noise, but she didn’t care. It made her laugh. “Gay rights, motherfucker!”

Nobody responded, but that was okay. Melanie was gay even when nobody was around. It was her. It had always been the one thing that connected them all, really, the one thing they had in common. When the Archive was just a messy tumble of people who hated each other and never said what they meant and never meant what they said, they had that. 

There was so much they had in common, really. Basira and Melanie were both so stern and no-nonsense. Melanie and Daisy loved messing with people, pulling pranks and acting innocent. Basira and Daisy always operated on that same wavelength, entire conversations in the quirk of an eyebrow. 

“Georgie!” Melanie called, voice stronger. “Come get me, I’m lost!”

She didn’t reply. Georgie wasn’t coming. But Melanie walked forward anyway. 

“I love you!” Melanie cried. It wasn’t the first time she had said it, but she meant it even more every time. “When I think of the perfect voice, I hear you saying you love me! When I think of the perfect body, I feel you with me! When I think of the most loving, caring person in the world, I see you! Even if you aren’t here, I see you!”

Melanie walked, and the fog roiled under her. But who _cared_. 

“When you aren’t here, I miss you,” Melanie said, into nothing, into her own heart. “But that means that you’re always with me, aren’t you? When you’re here and when you’re gone? You don’t need to respond. It’s okay if - if you aren’t here! You’re always here, you love me, Georgie!”

Melanie’s feet landed on solid cobblestone, and Melanie _sprinted_. 

She wasn’t a fast runner. She wasn’t a long distance runner. She never exercised, actually, that was more Georgie’s thing. But she ran, like she was trying to outpace her own heart. It beat, loud and clear in her ears, and with every thump she felt _I love you_. 

There was a hill, where Melanie grew up. It seemed very tall to a little kid. It probably wouldn’t be all that big to an adult. But all of the neighborhood kids would congregate at the top of the hill, and dare each other to roll down it. Melanie, always brave, always needy for attention, would volunteer. And she would run down that hill, and she would go faster than she ever thought a human being could run, until she knew that if she jumped she could soar up and fly away. The truth that her body felt, that her mind sang to her, hadn’t caught up with reality. She had never jumped, never flown. 

But she always knew that she could have, in that moment. If she had just leaped. 

Melanie threw the compass over her shoulder, and it disappeared into the fog. She didn’t need some cereal box toy hunk of junk telling her what she already knew. Melanie knew where Daisy and Basira were; they were her friends. They didn’t stop being her friends just because she was sad, or alone, or mean. A rope to hold onto, holding her steady. 

Jon was waiting for her. She had to get back, the guy was useless without her. And Tim! He could barely go five minutes without her nagging him. Sasha got way too caught up in her research, she didn’t have a lick of common sense. Melanie was her common sense. Martin needed someone to center him, bring him down to Earth. Melanie could hold him down, bring him back into sanity. 

Melanie ran, faster than she knew how. She was running blind, head-first into the mysterious and inscrutable future. She was scared, but that was alright. If she jumped now, made the choice that she had always been too afraid to make as a child, would they catch her? Or would she fall alone, forever, in that infinite fog? 

What had That Douche Peter Lukas called her? Twister of reality - or just a pretender, an optimist? If Melanie wanted it bad enough, could she have it?

Melanie made a leap of faith. 

She jumped off the path, her momentum sending her soaring. She jumped off the cobblestone path, and felt herself hurtling through space and time. 

She landed on something soft. That screamed. 

Whoops. 

“Fuck! What the fuck! Ow!”

“Sorry,” Melanie said sheepishly, realizing far too late that she had crash landed right on top of Daisy. Thankfully, she had seemed to land on her back instead of her head. Could you get concussions in fear dimensions? Tim went six months without eating, so you probably couldn’t die…

She slid off Daisy, watching the older woman groan and pick herself off the floor. When she turned around, she saw a very unamused Basira. Her lips were pursed and her arms were crossed, which meant that Melanie had _really_ fucked up. Fantastic. 

Well. At least they were together? She didn’t want to go through all of that twice. Never mind she would probably have to just to get them both out of here. As fun as this journey of self-discovery was, Melanie was tired and wanted to go home and be held by her girlfriend. And, like, fuck, but in a god-honoring way. With rose petals. 

“Where the fuck did you come from,” Daisy mumbed, wincing and popping her back. “What are you doing here? You said you went home for the day.”

Uh. “I’m here to rescue you,” Melanie said blankly. 

But Basira just snored. “Please, rescue _me_. Let Daisy go run off with her brand new little bestie Jon Sims. She’s the one who refuses to face the truth.”

“You and truth,” Daisy snarled, and Melanie took a careful step back. “Just because something’s true doesn’t mean it’ll _fix_ everything. The world doesn’t give a shit about what’s true or not. All that matters are your pretty little lies.”

“I’m not a liar! You’re the one who _pretended_ to be best friends with Jon, of all people!”

“At least Jon _admits_ when he cares about me!”

“It’s not my fault you won’t say it back!” Basira yelled, and then abruptly quieted. The sound was swallowed by the fog, but something about it seemed to echo, repeating her words again and again. “If you just admitted it we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

Melanie raised a hand. “Can I ask what’s going on?”

“Shut it!”

“Stay out of this!”

Melanie lowered her hand. 

“You’re the only reason I stayed at this stupid job,” Basira hissed, jabbing a finger at Daisy. “I stayed in _Artifact Storage_ for you.”

“I never asked you to,” Daisy spat. “Don’t pull your martyr shit for people who don’t even want it!”

“All I’ve ever done is try to help you. I supported you, I dragged you to therapy, I stayed at your place for _weeks_ when you couldn’t even get out of bed. I took care of you, in every way that I could. And you look at all of that and tell me that I’ve never _said_ it? I’ve said it every day of my fucking life!”

“I’m not a mind reader, Basira!”

“Maybe you should learn some social skills, Daisy!”

“I never asked you to do it!” Daisy screamed, and Melanie took another step back. She was fisting her hands in her hair, somehow desperate, almost insane. “I was such a bitch to you for _years_ and you never complained. You never said shit. I was a shithead mess who couldn’t give a shit about anybody but myself for years and you never said a fucking word. I thought you hated me for years. I thought you were helping me because you felt fucking obligated or some shit, not because you _cared_ ! Nobody’s ever cared about me, nobody’s ever given a shit, why would you! Don’t you get how I couldn’t _believe_ it? How I didn’t know what it fucking _looked_ like? How was I supposed to say it when I’ve never felt it?”

“I can’t say it until you say it!” Basira yelled. 

“I can’t say it until you say it!” Daisy spat. 

“I can’t say it -”

“ - until you say it!”

“I can’t -”

“ - say it -”

“ - until you -”

“ - say it!”

It was the fog dimension. Melanie knew that, objectively. But it was strange: to see two people, beating in exact rhythm, finishing each other’s sentences, speaking simultaneously, because they were afraid that the other person didn’t feel what they felt. 

They were mirrors of each other, in this moment. The only difference was the body language: Basira leaning forward, reaching out, almost desperate, and Daisy hunching away as if burned. Basira needed it, Daisy was afraid of it. Daisy needed it so bad but she was so scared, and Basira was so scared that she just needed to _know_. 

They must have been fighting. Daisy must have been shaken from Sarah Carpenter’s interview. Maybe she agreed, or maybe she disagreed. 

The nihilism was compelling. It sang the same song that the fog did: that nothing mattered, and that nothing had to matter. That you were alone, meaningless, and that everything you felt in your heart was true. It hurt, so deeply, so it must be true. 

Daisy had tried to dip into the fog to get away. Basira must have reached out - she had been doing nothing but reaching out lately - and grabbed her, getting sucked in too. And then neither of them could find the way out, because they were alone together. 

It was almost funny. Even here, the connection between the two women was so intense. There must be so much shit that they could never say to each other. What connected them kept them apart. They were making each other more and more lonely, more and more miserable. Melanie’s relationship with Georgie brought her comfort and strength, but for Basira and Daisy it just seemed to cause deep pain born from equally deep love. 

They would stay like this forever. Having the same old argument. Speaking over each other, speaking in sync. It didn’t matter. They’ll never say it. 

Melanie knew she couldn’t fix this. But a little push wasn’t so bad, was it?

Melanie reached out and lightly chopped both of them on the head. They both rounded on her, ready to yell at her to keep out of it, but Melanie butted in too quickly for them to complain. 

“Hey, Daisy,” Melanie said, speaking over her yell. “Who did you kill, anyway?”

Both Daisy and Basira blinked at her, dumbfounded. 

“What,” Basira said flatly. 

Melanie just shrugged. “Well, it just occurred to me that we never actually _asked_? I mean, we’ve asked tons of times, but you’ve always dodged the question. Come on, just tell the truth.”

Daisy opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said sheepishly, “I’ve never actually killed anyone.”

Melanie gaped. Basira sighed. 

“Daisy’s never even stabbed anyone,” she said, irritated. But her normal level of irritated. “She had to get a new identity and a new name and everything, but she’s not a fucking murderer. She just never denies it so she looks cool.”

This was so much. Melanie struggled for the most pertinent question. “So why _were_ you fleeing state lines and stealing a new identity?”

“Tax fraud,” Daisy said, with a straight face. 

“Oh.” Melanie paused a beat. “Wait, Daisy’s not your real name?!”

“It’s Alice.”

“Fuck!”

“It’s not like Basira doesn’t have secrets,” Daisy - _Alice_??? - said snidely. “Her parents are still alive.”

“Wow, really?” Melanie asked, as Basira flushed and adjusted her hijab in embarrassment. “Cringe.”

“They live in Australia, it’s not as if I see them more than once every three years,” Basira said defensively, as if this was at all comparable to Melanie’s little baby orphan status. “Look, it’s not embarrassing to love your parents, okay? I don’t call them for normal reasons.”

“She doesn’t call them because her parents shut down any open sign of emotion and she’s afraid to be emotional over the fact that they’re almost entirely out of her life in front of them,” Daisy said, bored. 

“Well, _you’re_ afraid to be emotional in front of _anyone_ because you have a terrible sense of self-worth!”

“Can I tell you guys a secret?” Melanie asked abruptly, and Daisy closed her mouth from where she was about to give a rebuttal. Melanie smiled wanly at them, heart beating just a little faster. “You guys are my best friends.”

Both Daisy and Basira abruptly looked a little embarrassed. 

“Cool,” Daisy said. 

“That’s nice,” Basira said, looking at the nonexistent ceiling. 

“You were the first friends I had in - man, since uni? I thought I had friends in uni, but they all stopped talking to me the minute I graduated, so I guess not.” Melanie shrugged easily. “I worked in Research for half a year, basically invisible. When I met you guys, and spent all my time with you all and Jon, I would always feel even worse. You two were just so clearly on the same wavelength. And Jon was...Jon. I was lonely. Kind of depressed.”

Both Daisy and Basira looked extremely uncomfortable with this open display of emotion. Daisy was wincing. 

“But when we gaslit a mentally ill man, I felt us really come together,” Melanie continued. “And we’ve been through a lot of shit, but I feel like it’s only made us stronger. I know we don’t talk about it. I’m the only one here who really does feelings. But you guys are my best friends.” She paused a beat, uncertain of how much to say. “I’m a normal human being, who likes to see my best friends happy. No matter...how you feel...you’re happiest together. I’ve hated seeing you two apart. Even if you’re miserable, wouldn’t you rather be miserable together?”

Basira’s mouth crumpled. Daisy scrubbed at her eyes. 

“Not to force the matter or anything,” Melanie said, “but I don’t think we’re going to get out of here until you do. And I _really_ want to go home and cuddle with my girlfriend.”

“Wish I had a girlfriend,” Basira muttered, almost reflexively. 

Daisy’s head snapped up, eyes wide. “You _what_?”

Oh, man. Basira’s been gay pining for _months_ . And Daisy _hadn’t been here_. 

“Yeah, I’m a lesbian, whatever. We threw my coming out party months ago.” Basira hunched her shoulders, wrapping her arms around herself. “Whatever. What do you care.”

“What do I - what do I _care_ \- Basira!” Daisy’s expression fell a little. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Denial’s a thing?”

“Oh.” Daisy looked down, wringing her hands. “Well, in that case, uh. Gay rights. And, uh, pretty relatable, right? I mean who doesn’t...want a girlfriend…”

She trailed off uncertainly, or as uncertain as Daisy ever got. Basira, who was perfectly aware that Daisy was a lesbian ever since she hacked into her browsing history, just looked unimpressed. On her _work computer._ Balls of steel. 

Something strange, almost forgotten, tingled on Melanie’s neck. It wasn’t until she reached up and rubbed it that she realized it was warm, smooth, soft sunlight. 

“I didn’t want to feel the way I feel,” Daisy said, oblivious to the swirling changes around them. “I hated it. Not for - the reasons you’re thinking. I just hated being so weak. So vulnerable. It felt like a wound, and every time I saw you it was like I was digging my fingers inside.”

The clouds in the sky were swirling, and the fog was rising in the wind. It swirled around them beautifully in the salty ocean air, little droplets of water hitting the sunlight, refracting into a million little sparkles of light. 

“It’s like a milky way,” Basira murmured, watching the glittering lights above them with wide eyes, almost sparkling. 

But Daisy couldn’t see it. She was just looking at her hands, wringing them over and over again. 

“I hated myself. I don’t like having feelings. It hurt so much because I knew - I _just knew_ that you didn’t feel the same way. Who would feel that about me, right? I was so scared. What if I told you and...what if that was what made you finally hate me.”

The fog lifted, dissolving in the bright sunshine. The waves receded, the hard gusts of wind softening into a gentle breeze. Melanie could see around them, for the first time: flaxen gold sand, shining in the sunlight. A grey sky, softening into blue. 

“I started loving you, and then I just couldn’t stop,” Daisy croaked, and Melanie saw that tears were running hot and fast down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I was scared.”

At that moment, Basira wasn’t looking at the galaxy of light above them, or at the bright and sunny beach. She was just looking at Daisy, as if she was all of these things and more - a thousand times brighter than light, greater than the ocean. 

“I’m sorry too,” Basira said. “But I’m not sorry about loving you.”

There was one thing that they didn’t do in perfect sync: Basira stepped forward, then ran forward. She dived for Daisy, jumping into her arms, and Daisy laughed and spun her around. Light and free, flying. 

They span, and laughed, and then Daisy dipped her head down to kiss Basira deeply. 

A wind blew around them and through them, so powerful and strong and breathtaking that it swept all of the sand and the ocean and the fog away, leaving nothing but the boring little office of the Archives, and their shellshocked coworkers, as Daisy and Basira kissed each other deeply with all of the love that had gone unsaid all of these years. 

  
  
  


**Martin:** FRANCE???

 **Sasha:** France?!

 **Jon:** Tolbert isn’t exactly an English last name…

 **Martin:** TOLBERT?! HER NAME’S TONNER

 **Jon:** Whoops. Wait, you guys didn’t know?

 **Sasha:** Jon I swear to god I’ll kill you. NO we did not know. FRANCE?!

 **Jon:** <3

 **Melanie:** james that doesnt work he interprets that as a sign of affection

 **Melanie:** Daisy (uh u still wanna be called that? w/e) I’m shocked ur even txting us i thot ud be busy lol 

**Daisy:** were taking a sandwich break for round six lol

 **Sasha:** SIX?!

 **Daisy:** mel im surprised UR here. and i like daisy more its ok.

 **Melanie:** ehhh Georgie had 2 work early tmrw so i was kicked out lmao. Dont worry i got her all of tomorrow <3 lets all take a three day weekend as a treat

 **Sasha:** SIX?!

 **Jon:** round six of what?

 **Daisy:** backgammon

 **Jon:** Oh, sorry, thought it was of sex. Have fun!

“Kicked out, huh?”

“Is there a reason why you think you’re too good for the groupchat?” Melanie asked irritably, tossing her phone so it bounced on the mattress between them. On the other side of the pull-out bed, Tim was lying on his stomach, earbuds falling out of his ears and watching something on his borrowed laptop with a scowl. “Or a reason why you always read it anyway?”

“Why’d you lie?” Tim asked bluntly, even though he knew. 

After answering a few questions, in hindsight, probably not that well, Daisy and Basira had promptly fucked off work to go make out some more. Melanie was right behind them, stopping only long enough to let everybody know that she was fine and as good as saving people as ever, before she got to Georgie’s and commanded most of her time. She would have stayed for longer than 10pm, would have stayed the whole night until morning to make pancakes for her girlfriend in her underwear, but Tim had called her in the middle of a panic attack and she had gone straight home. 

He didn’t mean to. She could tell he was deathly embarrassed about it: the fact that seeing Melanie throw herself into _yet another_ hell dimension had sent him spiralling, that the situation had been so triggering that he could barely breathe. That an empty flat seemed too much that night. 

When Melanie got home she silently crawled into the pull-out bed with him, something she hadn’t done all week. He had acted as if going back to work had cured him, and that he didn’t need Melanie by him any more. It was almost strange: how Tim gained muscle definition and weight at a supernatural rate, how next week he probably wouldn’t even need the cane, how quickly his body was recovering from an experience that skimmed death like a bird on the water. It almost obscured the fact that he was getting worse. 

Instead of answering the redundant question, Melanie shuffled closer to him until their arms were pressing against each other. She was under three different blankets and was still cold, and Tim seemed to notice - subtly and non-intrusively, he stretched out an arm over her shoulders and slid over until he was slightly on top of her. Yay, complementary traumas. 

“What are you watching, anyway? Finishing Transformers?” Melanie teased, before seeing the webpage open on his brower. Her eyes widened. “Tim...”

It was her channel. The video he opened was a little older, probably from two months ago. The title was “INVESTIGATING MY COWORKER’S CONSPIRACY MAP” and it was a 10 minute complete walk-through of Sasha’s bizarre theories about how the Stokers fit into world history. It involved suggesting that Brutus had been a fear demon of the Homicide fear, which - fair. It was fair. 

“Drop it,” Tim said curtly, but Melanie couldn’t. Maybe that was her problem. 

“She misses you a _ton_ , dingus. Why don’t you just talk to her?”

“Drop it.”

“You know I didn’t exactly record the _hours_ she used to spend in the library crying where she thought we couldn’t hear, right? Or the entire day we had to spend helping her pack your shit away in a storage unit because she couldn’t look at it without breaking into tears?”

There was an odd rumble above her, reverberating in her chest. “Shut _up_ , Mels.”

“You’ve been avoiding us nonstop about this,” Melanie complained. “You’ve been avoiding her so obviously that it’s honestly awkward. It’s mad annoying. You two are next on the the couple’s therapy docket, I’m still working on my approach -”

“I said _shut up_!”

It happened in two smooth motions. Tim lifted himself onto his arms, and easily flipped her over until she could see his face. It was dimly lit by the one lamp they had lit in the dark studio flat, dappled in swirling patterns of light and dark, and he bared his yellowed teeth at her. When Melanie reflexively pushed at his chest trying to get him off her, he grabbed her arms and pinned them down to the bed, making the springs creak. 

“Dude,” Melanie said, completely unimpressed, “what is this.”

She was pretty sure she had read this situation in one of her favorite werewolf fanfics, except it had been sexy instead of just kind of pathetic. Tim’s chest was wracking slightly, and his eyes were shining with the faintest hint of yellow. There was something strange in his strength, his twiggy arms somehow easily keeping her down. Melanie noted all of this clinically, before wondering if it was the full moon. 

“I thought you were _dead_ , you fucking idiot,” Tim rasped. It sounded as if he wanted to snarl, wanted to yell, wanted to take up space, but that he didn’t know how anymore. All he could do was hoarsely rasp, throat too choked with fear and hysteria to produce anything stronger. “You were gone for _hours._ You stupid, self-sacrificing idiot! You can’t keep throwing yourself in every hell you find!”

“What did you want me to do?” Melanie asked irritably. “Let Daisy and Basira rot?”

“I’d have done it! You could have at least let me gone _with_ -”

“You were in no shape and you know it. You would have been dead weight, Tim.” Melanie frowned. “Everything turned out okay, so what’s the issue?”

“What’s the _issue_ ?” Tim croaked. “The issue is that you could have been lost in Hell forever. You - you don’t deserve - you’re _good_ , Melanie, you don’t deserve that.”

“And Daisy and Basira do? _You_ do?”

“Daisy and I dug our own graves.” In the dim yellow light, Tim’s eyes seemed to shine. A sick, vibrant yellow; trembling. It was poison, but it was poisoning only him. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me, don’t you get that? I don’t have - shit, fuck, never mind. But you - people need you. You know how many people can say that? That their life is worth something? Don’t throw that away for your hero complex.”

“This is a really unnecessary way of just saying that you were scared and worried about me,” Melanie said. 

“I’m always scared,” Tim whispered hoarsely, pupils slitting, “and it’s making me so fucking hungry. I want to eat everything evil and rotten. I want to eat everything good. I want to eat _you_. I want to eat you so fucking bad.”

“Get,” Melanie said slowly, “the fuck off me.”

She could see it: when Tim realized what he was doing, what he was saying. In one moment his eyes were a sickly and diseased yellow, and in another it was as if the light refracting off his eyes had been obscured, and all there was left was a dark brown. She couldn’t even be sure that she hadn’t imagined the pupil thing. Horror bloomed across his face, and he threw himself off her so fast that he rolled straight off the bed. When Melanie sat up, massaging her wrists a little - it hadn’t hurt at all, but it was the principle of the matter - she saw him sitting on the floor, trembling, hair and eyes wild. He looked sick. 

She should probably tell him that she hadn’t been scared whatsoever, that it was okay, that she forgave him. She should probably tell him that despite everything he _still_ reacted to insecurity and fear by physically threatening people, especially women. That he was spiralling down a hole of fear and self-loathing and codependency. That his eyes were flashing yellower and yellower. That maybe he hadn’t changed as much as he thought he had. 

But she had the feeling he knew all of that, because he was still avoiding Sasha. 

Instead, Melanie did the mature thing and established a boundary. “If you do that one more time I’m telling Jon to fix the problem.” Jon was the only person in the Archives that Tim was truly afraid of and they both knew it. “And you’d be out of my flat.”

Tim nodded shakily. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but he closed it instead and pressed a palm to it, as if he was keeping in vomit. 

She slid off the bed too, on the opposite side. She wanted to spend the night at her girlfriend’s. But if she did, guaranteed he’d have a panic attack. But it really wasn’t her job to make sure Tim didn’t have panic attacks, especially when the dude was wolfing out on her. But...she wasn’t really actually that upset, just tired and stressed after a day wading through a hell dimension. But...she had literally spent what later turned out to be three hours in a hell dimension and she was tired and stressed 

Melanie sighed, and rubbed her forehead. Neither of them said anything, letting the softly buzzing lamp and the soft rush of cars on the street stretch out the moment in quiet exhaustion. 

Then Tim started pulling himself to his feet. “I’m going.” 

Shit. That’s even worse. “No, you’re not. Go to sleep. I’m sleeping in my own bed.”

“But -”

“Do. It.”

He did it. She went to bed too - kind of sad, kind of confused, kind of resentful, kind of fucking wondering how the hell she was supposed to fix this. 

But Tim didn’t fall asleep for a long time, silently watching YouTube videos on his phone. Melanie had figured that he was watching videos of when he was gone, desperately trying to catch up to a life he had missed. 

When she checked his browsing history the next morning the only two videos she saw that he had watched after their fight were her interviews with Mike Crew and Sarah Carpenter.

Over and over and over again.

Well. That _probably_ wasn’t good. 

  
  
  
  


Friday and Saturday were Georgie Days. This was vital, because it restored her depleted HP and mana from the hell dimension and Tim’s nervous breakdown. Melanie had meant to spend those two whole days in romantic bliss, but unfortunately Georgie actually did work for her job and Melanie ended up spending most of it sleeping. 

Georgie worked at home, Gerry was an unemployed layabout, and Jon was a workaholic who was rarely allowed to work more than eight hours a day, so she frequently found herself bumping against the flatmates. She usually ran into Gerry, who had the tendency to hang out in the living room and watch TV, read, or practice necromancy. Sometimes he stirred a small metal bowl and sprinkled in some powder that made thick wafts of smoke billow into the air, at which point Melanie would turn on the fan in the kitchen and yell at him. She also often saw the Admiral skulking around, dragging around mouse corpses with his teeth or lying in patches of sunlight. Sometimes mobile skeletons would crawl from Gerry’s bowl and the Admiral would happily start chasing them. 

Jon was less common, and usually the least likely to be home. Sometimes he came home at ten or eleven, evasive about where he’d been, which worried Melanie deeply. Was Jon getting up to shenanigans? Was he _working_ ? The prospect of leaving him unsupervised distressed her, no matter how often Georgie laughed about it. She _knew_ that he had basically raised himself for eighteen years, that only _proved_ her _point_.

It was a mystery, until Melanie dragged herself downstairs Sunday morning in nothing but a loosely tied bathrobe at six am to raid the fridge. Maybe put together a nice breakfast for Georgie, do something special - nobody else in the house woke up before ten, so she had free reign for a while. She blearily shuffled into the kitchen and flipped on the light, only to stop short when she saw a figure standing in front of the fridge, frozen in its tracks like a rabbit. 

It was Martin. He was also half-dressed. A croissant was half-way stuffed in his mouth. 

They stared at each other, unblinkingly, until Melanie slowly broke out into a vicious grin. Martin started sweating bullets.

“So _that’s_ why Jon said he’d be home late last night,” Melanie yelled victoriously, as Martin winced and flapped his hands at her until she dropped her voice to a whisper. “You guys _totally -_ ”

“Mmf mmf mmf,” Martin choked out through his croissant 

Something else amazing occurred to her. “Oh my god, you’re why he’s been gone so much. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Martin frantically chewed his croissant faster. 

“I thought you guys were going to be stuck in the awkwardly public flirting stage forever. Good job! This is so much fun, it’s like we’re bonding.”

Martin frantically swallowed the rest of his croissant, looking psychologically attacked. “You do know there’s such a thing as being over-involved in your coworker’s lives, right?”

“There is?” Melanie asked, whose entire social circle was her coworkers and flatmates of her coworkers. Her flatmate was also her coworker. Her girlfriend’s flatmate/best friend’s boyfriend was also her coworker. She was standing in a kitchen half-naked with her coworker, also half-naked. She had no sense of scale anymore. “Anyway, so was this your first time, or what? I know _my_ first time with Georgie was totally awkward the morning after, but -”

“ _Nothing_ happened,” Martin said firmly, and Melanie suddenly remembered a lot of things she’d been guessing. “And don’t you dare say that to Jon, he’s insecure enough as it is.” When Melanie opened her mouth, Martin quickly cut in, “Yes, I know, keep sending him the pamphlets, it’s helping. Pride month will be his tipping point.”

It was almost refreshing, how this was so deeply and clearly none of her business. That Martin had it in hand, that he trusted himself, her, and Jon, and that there was this whole positive journey of self-discovery going on. It helped chase away that chill a little better, a warm and soft reminder that sunlight could melt away any fog. 

Maybe that was why she asked. Martin really wasn’t the kind of person you had deep conversations with. He was so reserved all the time, and so homicidal every other time. But Martin was pulling out a cutting board, and opening the fridge again to draw out some bangers and scallops, she found herself asking anyway. 

“What’s it like being an ex-fear demon?”

For a second, it was as if he didn’t hear her. He took out some eggs from the fridge, and searched around the cabinets for a bit before drawing out a bowl and a whisk. He only spoke when he began breaking the eggs into a bowl, his smooth and confident crack against the counter echoing throughout the dim kitchen. 

“Like you’ve been drunk for a very long time, and you wake up with a hangover in the middle of the ruins of your life.” He whisked the egg expertly, wrist snapping. Something about the way Martin cooked was...not violent. But precise. Like his violence. “Or like you’ve spent four years - maybe more, honestly - feeling one emotion, and being numb in every other way. And one day, you feel everything else again. It’s overwhelming.”

“Jon doesn’t seem to mind.”

Martin smiled softly, and Melanie startled to see it. It was soft, kind, and warm: an expression that seemed so foreign on Martin’s face she could hardly believe it. She had never seen warmth in him before. “Jon’s insightful.” At Melanie’s skeptical look, he just huffed a soft laugh. “Jon’s not fooled by appearances. He doesn’t hear what you say, he hears what you mean. He’s kind of like you, really. You both have this amazing sense about people. He’s the kind of person who…” Martin trailed off, grabbing a knife from the block. Melanie took a big step back, making Martin’s lips thin, but all he did was quickly and efficiently chop the shallots. “Looks at a guy who draws a knife on him in the middle of getting coffee and interprets it as romantic interest. _Correctly_. He’s always known me, even when nobody else did. Even when I had forgotten who I was.” He glanced back at her, smiling slightly. “He’s a good person.”

“...so do you still want to stab him, or -”

“What we do in the bedroom is _none_ of your business, and it is safe, sane, and consensual, okay?!” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If you help me sous chef, I’ll make enough of this fry-up for you and Georgie too.”

“This is the _definition_ of MLM/WLW solidarity.”

“Rights!”

They high fived. It was pretty great.

Maybe the only thing greater was how Jon came down for breakfast an hour later to find Melanie and Martin exchanging embarrassing stories about Jon and laughing over heating up liquidy beans, and how completely mortified he was. Maybe only Georgie was better, how she looped her arms around Melanie’s waist and kissed her on the forehead. 

They sat around the breakfast table, Gerry joining them with an eye-roll and muttering about romance and the Admiral jumping on the table just long enough to filch one of Jon’s bangers. And as Georgie grated salt on her eggs and Martin scraped marmalade on his toast, as Jon waved his fork around passionately in the air as he argued for something inscrutable, Georgie found a bright and effusive warmth in her chest. It tingled in her fingers and settled behind her sternum, winding its way up her throat and choking her with it. 

She was very happy. She thought this to herself, with a kind of giddy disbelief: she really was very happy after all. Despite everything, she had this. After everything, she had this. 

The coldness from the fog dimension had lingered in her, or maybe it had always been there: that round-edged unhappiness, smoothed by constant handling. Her words to Georgie six months ago caught up with her: how did you know when that wound was gone, when you had never lived your life without it?

Maybe it felt like this: that what you bled wasn’t pain and rage, but a deep and aching emotion that could barely be put into words. Not always a happy feeling, but not always a sad one. A deep and refreshing spring that replenished itself endlessly; that strange feeling as if everything would be perfectly alright. 

“Wow,” Melanie said, “this is really what I needed after Tim pinned me to the bed and threatened to eat me a few days ago.”

Conversation ground to a halt. Everybody stared at Melanie. 

Martin’s grip on his knife, somehow, changed nature. Jon’s hair stood on end. 

“What,” Georgie said brightly, “the fuck.”

Uh oh. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings at the bottom for this. Tim's falling off the bad decisions tree and hitting every branch on the way down.

Prison was the same as ever.

“Was that really the best way to break the news?”

“Big talk from Mr. ‘By The Way I Killed Gertrude’,” Melanie snipped, ripping open a bag of Peanut M&Ms with her teeth. “I don’t know why they freaked! Tim gotta Tim, you know?”

“He is a fascinating case study into the mind of a frat bro tortured into insanity,” Elias mused. His orange jumpsuit and the harsh fluorescent lighting of the visiting room washed his already pasty face out further, and his white hair clung limpy to his scalp. Despite how ugly he was, he seemed to be in good cheer. Melanie didn’t know how: even this visitor’s room was depressing, and it was the only part of the prison she was supposed to  _ see _ . “Hardly the most  _ interesting  _ person I’ve tortured, but certainly my most ambitious -”

“Shove off, you didn’t even do anything.” Melanie threw the chocolate into her mouth, ignoring the way he twitched. It had probably been months since he’d had any chocolate. Good. “You made the clown people and the sad dirt do all that shit. What Stoker are you a fear demon of, the Stoker of the pussy?”

She was rewarded with another eye twitch. “Are you even aware that they have real names? That there is actual terminology for  _ any  _ of this?”

“Uh, yeah? Gerry mentioned that.” She snapped her fingers in thought. “Uh...Entries? Entrees?”

“Entities,” Elias gritted out. “And they’re  _ Avatars _ , not -”

“What, like Aang and Korra?”

“Korra hardly counts, she was overpowered.”

“I bet you think Rey was a Mary Sue in The Force Awakens too,” Melanie sniped, and was rewarded by Elias’ slightly guilty silence. “I don’t care if you’re a Mary Sue of the Privacy Force or whatever. Get over yourself. I some actual fucking questions for you, and I’m not letting you evade them again. Answer them, or -”

As Melanie trailed off, Elias smiled. “Or what? You’re a poor excuse for Jon. You can’t make me answer anything. Jon wouldn’t be able to either, so don’t get any ideas.”

“I’ll buy you M&Ms,” Melanie said triumphantly. 

Elias’ eyes darted to the bag on the table. They darted to her. Melanie narrowed her eyes at him. He narrowed his eyes at her. 

Two minutes later, there were three bags on the table: one for each question he agreed to answer. She couldn’t bargain him up to any more, and she was out of coins besides. Knowing the way he went on, they’d run out of their hour long visit before then anyway. 

So Melanie sat with her arms crossed, fuming, as Elias victoriously ripped open the bag and popped some candy in his mouth. “First question. What’s your big Machiavellian scheme that’s going to trap us all in a hell on earth and doom humanity to an eternity of suffering?”

“Good lord, where would you get that idea? Eternal suffering gets old after the first fifty years, believe me.” Elias sighed mournfully, cracking a peanut between his teeth. “Peter’s been telling tales again, hasn’t he.”

“For a guy who says he hates noise he sure likes hearing the sound of his own voice,” Melanie said flatly, and Elias sighed. “Peter’s the next question. So  _ what’s  _ the plan?”

“What makes you think there is a plan?” Elias asked archly. 

“There’s always a plan!” Melanie yelled, and she winced as the guards all looked at her. Quieter, but with no less vehemence, Melanie hissed, “There’s always some stupid kind of manipulation or cheap trick with you. You blackmailed Sasha to get Tim on board. You manipulated Tim into the coffin. You got that coffin  _ delivered  _ to us, and you weren’t surprised at all when I cracked it open.”

“Maybe I just really hate Tim.”

“Who doesn’t hate Tim! But you didn’t dump all of us in this shitty job and force us to stay on accident. You didn’t lose that bet against Peter on accident. You aren’t in prison for  _ fun _ . What’s the point of micro-managing my life for the past three years? You gave Jon superpowers on purpose, you arse. Why would you voluntarily give  _ Jon  _ of all people superpowers?” Something quickly occurred to her, and she said, “None of these questions count!”

“Would it really make you feel better if I had a plan?” Elias asked curiously. “Would it give some kind of definition and meaning to your pointless life? I can make one up, if you like.”

“Stop deflecting!”

But Elias just gave her a sly half-smile, hidden behind one hand. “Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I just hate you. Maybe I knew that Peter could cause some  _ very  _ interesting changes to my Institute, and prison was the only way he would. Who could have ever expected that I’d lose a bet that I’d never get arrested?”

Melanie opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she said. “The bet was.”

“Yep.”

“The bet was that you wouldn’t get -”

“ - arrested, yes.”

“Why the fuck would you make such a stupid bet.”

“Do you want that to be your next question?”

“No!” Melanie spitefully dropped more M&Ms in her mouth. “Next question: what’s the deal with you and Peter Lukas?”

“I hate him,” Elias said blandly. “Which he’s really into. Think of it as an...ah, what do you call it.” He snapped his fingers a few times in thought before pointing at her. “Murdersexual! Yes, he’s murdersexual. I want to murder him and he finds it hot.”

“Wow,” Melanie said, impressed, “so it’s like a real thing, huh?”

“Obviously. Murdersexuality is the crux of the fear demon community,” Elias said, before pausing a beat. “There’s also his humiliation thing, but that’s hardly any of your -”

“It  _ really  _ isn’t,” Melanie said quickly, before faltering. The puzzle pieces were being dumped on her lap, but for the life of her she just couldn’t figure out what it was that she was putting together. “So you got Peter into the Institute. You’ve gotten me and the squad to try to kick Peter out of the Institute. If you win the bet you get your Institute back...but you lost it on  _ purpose _ …and you’re hanging out in prison for  _ fun _ ...”

The arse was clearly enjoying her confusion, popping M&Ms into his mouth as Melanie valiantly fought off a migraine. “I think I answered that question to the satisfaction of our agreement. What’s your last question? ‘Why me?’, right? What grand movements of your fate lead you towards your destiny? How you, Melanie Elaine King, ended up here, in this plastic seat, trapped in a dead-end job? What about you makes you the topic of fascination for the entire supernatural community? Was Peter correct when he called you a reality warper, and what did he mean by it -”

“What was it like?”

That stopped Elias short. Good. Melanie pretended that she hadn’t totally meant to ask the destiny question. She couldn’t ask him a question he expected, all he’d give her is bullshit. Maybe this would work - the question that had been nagging at the back of her mind, ever since Basira had tracked down Elias’ employment information. Ever since Sarah Carpenter had mentioned his name, her brain had been chewing over it. That odd and distant nostalgia, tinged with bittersweet pain - did Elias have any place in it? 

“What’s prison like? Wonderfully entertaining, like my own little reality show,” Elias said testily. “I’m running an experiment to recreate Breaking Bad, great time -”

“The Archives. Back when Gertrude was in charge. You worked there, right?”

Elias stared at her, and Melanie set her jaw and stared back. His dark brown eyes, never quite looking straight at her, seemed to grow a little distant, as if he was looking at something far away. 

“Yes,” Elias said finally, “I suppose you could say that.”

“What was it like?”

Elias was silent for another second. Melanie held her breath, the moment stretching between them in strange tension. 

“That was a very long time ago,” Elias said. “It was...I was in Artifact Storage, but I worked with the Archives frequently. Mary, Fiona, Emma...Helen and Sarah hadn’t joined until much later, I think, after I - was promoted. Lord, did we get into trouble.” A small smile flickered at the corner of Elias’ mouth. “I remember that haunted SNES. Mary and I played Mario Kart for - what, three days straight? Fiona made fun of us for hours over it, but it had been a fun break. Mr. Wright even gave us overtime.”

“Sarah made it sound as if you all hated each other.”

“What? Oh, yes, I suppose. By then...yes, I suppose so.” Elias fell silent for a second, lost in thought, before speaking again. “It had started out good. They weren’t good people, but neither was I, and we could be bad people together. We had been...genuine friends, I think. Halcyon days of childhood or whatever they were.” Elias shrugged listlessly. “But things went sour. Everything does, Melanie. Affection burned bitter and curdled into resentment. Friendships fell by the wayside as we began slotting people into enemy or victim.” His mouth twisted into a humorless smile. “I really did try to keep them together. They were important to me, and I was a child who still believed in friends. But my childhood ended very abruptly with my promotion. It was only then that I saw it.” He leaned in, just a little, and Melanie fought to keep herself still. “There is no Entity of peace and love, Melanie. You can’t save them all. I couldn’t save any of them. I couldn’t even save myself. What makes you think you’re any different?”

“Fuck you,” Melanie said, and that was the only kind of rebuttal she could get in, because the bell rang the end of visiting hours, and there was no more time to talk. 

It was probably for the best. There was nothing to say anyway. 

Melanie didn’t run out of the prison, but she walked as quickly as she dared: thoughts swirling with people she might not be able to save.

  
  
  
  


Tim was getting worse. 

It didn’t take a genius to see it - which was convenient, as Melanie was a solid B student. As much as she would like to spend all of her time trying to puzzle out Elias’ plan, or second-guessing her motivations for thinking that there was a grand plan in the first place, or kissing her girlfriend, she had the feeling that spending all of her time worrying about him and ignoring the problems in front of her was exactly what Elias wanted. 

Tim had spent most of Sunday out of the flat, and when he came home at night he didn’t talk to her. He avoided her Monday morning too, no matter how often she tried to engage him, and when they rolled up to work together he promptly began ignoring everybody else too. This was unfortunate, and somewhat difficult, as nobody else was  _ him _ . 

The minute Melanie and Tim had walked through the doors of the Archives that morning Jon had called Tim into his office, who came out ten minutes later with a stony expression and a staunch refusal to tell her what they had talked about. Martin kept the knives and the bitchy comments to himself, but he stared at Tim long and hard with pursed lips and a judgemental expression. Daisy and Basira, when they finally showed up, sided with Martin in giving Tim the most judgemental and condescending looks physically possible. Melanie was glad she had told everybody not to give him a hard time about it, but it seemed as if they were sticking to the letter of the law instead of the spirit of it. 

The only person who seemed not to have an opinion about the whole debacle was Sasha. But that was nothing new. 

Tim, for his part, locked himself in the library the entire day, and when lunch hit Melanie was forced to take out her skeleton key (liberated from Jon years ago) and break into his inner sanctum. He didn’t even look up when she entered, and Melanie saw that he had been spending the last few hours pouring over thick stacks of statements. A tape recorder was playing a statement, Gertrude’s droll and monotone voice echoing throughout the room. 

“Bro,” Melanie said, unphased by Tim’s silent treatment, “ _ what  _ did I say about the statements.”

“I’m busy, Mel.”

“Yeah, and now you’re busy with lunch.” Melanie clapped her hands sharply, gesturing at the door. “Come on, we’re getting kebabs.”

Tim’s eye twitched. “I’m  _ really  _ busy. I’m not joining you.” 

Then he went back to reading, and went back to ignoring Melanie. 

She got lunch with her friends, and politely ignored Daisy and Basira making out the whole time, and tried not to stare too long at a subdued Sasha eating a kebab with one hand and reading a thick book in the other. 

Everything was fixed, really. They were together again. The energy was higher than it had been in the last six months: Martin and Jon were talking quietly, heads turned towards each other and occasionally giggling, and Daisy and Basira  _ literally  _ would not stop making out. Melanie was happy with her girlfriend, if preoccupied by her narrative foil. Of course romance wasn’t the key to happiness, but it was the majority of what had been bothering everybody, so it felt as if everything was in order again.

The only people left who were still unhappy were Sasha and Tim. 

And Tim was getting worse. 

When she tried breaking into the library again, the door wouldn’t open, and she heard the tell-tale scrape of a chair behind the thin wood. He had jammed a chair under the doorknob - a popular tactic usually employed by Sasha whenever Melanie tried to drag her away from her books. Daisy volunteered to help her break the door down, but Melanie was saving that as a last resort. 

It wasn’t like Tim to trap himself in a small, dark space. Without Melanie. It really wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t. 

Melanie changed tactics. 

Everybody had to use the loo eventually, and Tim was no exception. She didn’t ambush him on his way out, mindful of the way everybody was crowded around Basira’s computer watching  _ Love, Actually _ , but when Tim slipped out the door she waited one, two, five, ten seconds before quietly following him. 

She leaned against the wall outside of their gender-neutral bathroom shared with Artifact Storage. It was a pretty good bathroom, definitely her favorite in the building. Occasionally radioactive, but she didn’t hold it against Artifact Storage. She sometimes dropped by to give them lessons in unionizing in exchange for Institute gossip. Nice people. Flammable. 

The flush of a toilet. The rush of water. The door creaking open. 

“We gotta talk, dude.”

Tim kept walking past her. 

“I locked the Archive doors, you can’t get in.”

Tim stopped halfway down the hallway before turning to her incredulously. 

“Did you lock every one of our coworkers in the office just to trap me?”

Melanie shrugged, casually moving to the center of the hallway to block off the other exit. She didn’t mean to trap him, but...well, she totally meant to trap him. “Maybe?”

Tim scowled at her, expression hot and dangerous, but she watched him quickly stifle it and replace the anger with a profound blankness. “What’s there to talk about? Jon already chewed me out, happy?”

“The point isn’t to chew you out,” Melanie cried, incredulous and weirdly hurt. As if he had microaggressed her in the workplace? “I’m worried about you. It sucked watching you pretend to be happy, but it’s even worse watching you shut down like this. I just need communication from you, mate. I want to help, but you aren’t letting me.”

“Maybe you should give up on  _ helping _ ,” Tim snarled, and Melanie fought a recoil. “It’s not worth it to waste your life  _ helping  _ people who don’t want to be helped. You’re wasting your life on hopeless causes.”

“I’m not the one who decides if someone’s a hopeless cause or not,” Melanie said, voice calm and even despite her heart jumping in her chest. “And you don’t get to decide who I spend my life on.”

Tim was silent. He wasn’t looking at her, jaw clenched so hard she could see the jump of his muscles, and it wasn’t  _ fair _ . Melanie was the one who had been hurt. All she wanted was an apology and an attitude change. She didn’t want to have to keep on trying to stop Tim from spiraling, self-destructing, and tearing himself apart. 

She couldn’t stop feeling as if she owed this to him. Tim felt as if he owed something to her too, which was why he went apeshit in the first place, but the depth of his feelings about her were terrifying and kind of awkward. She probably didn’t understand it. Tim definitely didn’t understand it - she could see it, almost every day, the way he struggled with fitting Melanie into some category of person he understood. Melanie didn’t know how to explain that she didn’t really understand Tim either - understand how she felt about him, if he was her friend, if she even liked him. 

Tim breathed in, and breathed out. For a brief, stupid second, Melanie thought he was going to say something normal, like an apology or a Nietzche quote or some kind of false-bright, too chipper careless remark. Something like the New Tim that, even if she didn’t understand, at least she knew was safe. 

“I hurt you,” Tim said, slowly and deliberately, “and I’m going to make sure I can’t hurt anybody else I care about again.”

He walked towards her, and for a brief and insane moment Melanie thought that he was going in for a hug or something, but instead he just pushed past her. Despite herself Melanie let him, because she didn’t think any further hashing out of this conversation would do any good, and watched him rip open the door to the stairwell and thump his way back into daylight. 

  
  


That encounter pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. 

And the next.

And the next.

It was really hard to put so much effort into avoiding somebody who you shared a small workplace and a smaller studio flat with, but Tim was an intrepid detective and would stop at nothing in his pursuit of justice. The most Melanie could get out of him was by putting on a goofy telly show that they both liked -  _ Nailed It!  _ was the current favorite, as they both enjoyed schadenfreude - and hopping next to him on the pull-out bed. They didn’t talk, just watched the show, but it was the most that Melanie could do. If Tim sat on the opposite end of the bed from her, then that was his problem. 

Melanie didn’t do well with this quiet avoidance. She had never been the type for the silent treatment, for drawn-out fights, or for any way that women tended to deal with conflict. Melanie screamed at you for ten minutes, occasionally got into a catfight, and then all was forgiven. She reacts explosively, and feels strongly as if that resolved things. Or at least that it should. 

She didn’t know what to do about this. She didn’t know how to handle Tim. She didn’t  _ want  _ to handle Tim. She had her own problems. 

Part of her deeply wanted to ask Sasha for advice, but most of her felt as if Sasha had spent a long time trying to sort out Tim’s shit and that she had earned a vacation from it all. The most she approached Sasha about it was on the third day of this tense avoidance. It was something to do besides gag over how cutesy Daisy and Basira were being, anyway. 

Sasha  _ had  _ to know what to do. She was the only person alive who understood him, and more importantly the only person alive who tolerated him. That had to count for something, right?

“Nope,” Sasha said, sipping from her coffee. “Do not ask. I do not care.”

“Thanks,” Melanie said. “Love and appreciate this support from you.”

They were in the kitchenette, and Tim had locked himself in the library again. Melanie could tell that Sasha was getting pissed off over the monopolization of her favorite space - Daisy also desperately wanted access back to her video games - but somehow she knew that something more was going on than just that. 

“I’m done with him. He’s clearly done with me! So I’m done with him. Who gives a shit. Not Sasha! I don’t even  _ think  _ about him. Who’s Timothy Ji-hoon Stoker? Even if I knew, I certainly wouldn’t care!”

“You’re excellent at dealing with things, aren’t you?”

“I deal with  _ everything _ ,” Sasha snapped, and Melanie took a long sip of her coffee. “I’m a problem solver. It’s what I do. Everybody always says so. Something’s wrong, I figure out the problem and I fix it. I fix my problems, I fix the world’s problems, I fix the problems in the workplace or in my family or with my friends, and I  _ never  _ complain. I’m  _ dependable _ . That’s what my Mum says! Oh, Sasha can do her accelerated secondary school programs and take some extra part time jobs, she’s dependable. Sasha can make dinner, clean the house, pick up after everyone else, she’s dependable. Sasha can do the paperwork for the case, she’s dependable. Sasha’s smart, she can figure it out, she doesn’t need help. Who cares! Not me!”

“Mhm,” Melanie hummed, taking another sip of her coffee. 

“You know this is the first workplace I’ve ever been in where I wasn’t worked three times as hard as everybody else? After that awful first week, everybody here actively  _ stops  _ me from doing everybody else’s work. Or any work! Everything I do here and all of the work I take care of is because I want to or because I think it’s important, not because everybody expects five times as much from me as they do the next guy. And that’s because there’s  _ no fucking men in this fucking  _ -”

“I mean, we are actually actively shitty to you on purpose,” Melanie pointed out. 

“The Dark ritual is going to destroy the world, and you keep on telling me that nobody cares! The world, Melanie!”

“We got other priorities, dude!”

Sasha screamed into her hands. “Don’t fucking ask me about Tim again! I don’t care!”

Melanie didn’t ask her about Tim again. But she was glad Sasha was self-actualizing! Go her. Girl power. Maybe she had finally read Basira’s Reading List on Feminism and Queer Issues. 

As great as that was, it actively and aggressively did not solve any of Melanie’s problems. That was probably fair: it wasn’t on Sasha to fix Tim. It wasn’t on Melanie either, but she didn’t know if she had any other choice. Who else could do it,  _ Jon _ ?

After they took care of Peter Lukas she was taking a vacation. A very long one. To France. They’d stay in Georgie’s villa, and everything would be perfect, and Melanie wouldn’t have to feel like she was keeping everybody together by her teeth. 

Five o’clock rolled around, and everybody began packing up to leave for the pub. Again, Tim didn’t emerge from the library. Melanie sighed, and as everybody else packed up their bags she waved everybody to move on ahead of her until she dragged Tim kicking and screaming from the library. That much literacy wasn’t good for anybody. 

“We’ll meet you there,” Basira said, texting Daisy that they were leaving. Daisy was still technically working for Lukas, but she was reintegrating pretty well with the Archives anyway. She had started getting drinks with them again, which was the important thing. “Don’t take too long.”

“Think I can get Daisy to slide me overtime if I do?”

“She would, but she’d kill you for making her fill out paperwork.”

And as Martin linked hands with Jon, and Sasha and Basira started talking animatedly about Judith Butler, Melanie knocked on the door of the library before letting herself in. 

Yet again, Tim was at the table. But the table was bare today: nothing on top of it but a single tape deck, with a cassette whirring away inside. The soft hum and static seemed to fill the large space, washed in fluorescent light with stubborn shadows from the stacks lingering in the corners. The telly flickered in the corner, bean bags smashed and limp with game controllers nestled inside. The whiteboard was shoved to the side, its words obscured by teetering stacks of boxes piled on the table next to Tim. 

On the floor around Tim’s table, there was a thick scatter of statements - as if they had been stacked on the table, but he had shoved them off in a fit of pique. Tim wasn’t looking at her: he was staring at the tape deck, arms folded on the table, expression tight and blank. 

Melanie began to have a bad feeling. 

“It’s five,” Melanie said, her voice echoing strangely in the quiet room. “Ready to go?”

Tim was silent for a long second, then two. It seemed almost as if the tape deck was speaking for him, in its quiet whirs. Why was it on?

“Can you sit down?” Tim asked finally. 

Thank god, they were finally talking. Melanie shrugged and walked forward to draw out the chair across from Tim, which was pressed up against the far right leg of the table. She dumped her purse on the table and screeched the chair against the wood obnoxiously, until she was sitting across from him. “Are you finally ready to talk about what’s been up with you? Because you’ve been freaking me out.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Tim scrubbed at his face, and Melanie saw for the first time the thick and wide bags under his eyes. She knew he hadn’t been sleeping well, but he looked  _ exhausted _ . Like he did when he first got out of the coffin. “Didn’t mean to stress you out.”

“Wow, Stoker, that’s almost an apology. You must be going soft.”

“Guess I am.” Tim flickered a weak smile, before letting it drop. “Sorry. I never really - really actually apologized for that. It’s been...fucking me up. I never should have done that to you.”

“You aren’t scary at all and I can snap you like a twig, but it was a total dick move, yeah.”

“I know, I know. It was fucked.” Tim scrubbed his face again. “I just...you made me so angry…” At Melanie’s supremely unimpressed look, he quickly said, “Not that that’s an excuse! And not that it’s your fault, not to put this on you - shit, I’m fucking this up.” 

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Shit.” Tim sighed, before setting his mouth. He sat up straighter, and one of his hands drifted to his jacket, and a strange bulge within it. “Mel. Do you trust me?”

Uh. Melanie blinked, uncertain of where this was going. But she didn’t have to think about it, not really. “Yeah?”

“Great. Close your eyes, please?”

Fucking weird, but whatever. Melanie closed her eyes obediently. Whatever made him feel better, probably. The chair screeched on the wood, and she heard Tim stand up. Was he fucking booking it again? Why would he tell her that they were finally talking only to run off again?

But he didn’t run off. It happened quickly, almost too quickly for Melanie to process. A calloused hand grabbed her wrist, and something cold and hard clicked against it. Her arm was pulled to the left as a firm hand locked onto her shoulder, and Melanie jerked her eyes open and instinctively tried to pull herself back. 

But it was too late. Something clicked shut, and the hand on her shoulder kept her still. The hand came off immediately, but by then Melanie had already realized what had happened: Tim had handcuffed her to the table. 

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” Melanie screamed. 

She jabbed an elbow back, but it only met air. Tim was already stepping back and sliding back into his seat, grimacing heavily. He looked a little embarrassed and a little ashamed, but mostly resolute. He grabbed her bag, withdrawing her phone from it, and dropped it behind him before typing quickly something out on it and dropping it back into the bag. “For what it’s worth I am very sorry.”

“For what it’s  _ worth _ ?” Melanie yelled. She immediately raised her voice into a scream. “Help! Guys,  _ help _ !”

“They’re already gone. Just texted Basira, told her that Tim was having another one of his little meltdowns and that I was taking him home.” Tim shrugged, making an aborted movement before sighing heavily and resting his hands on the table. “Sorry. Nobody’s coming.”

Melanie frantically stood up, letting the chair skitter back, and tried to pull the table up so she could slide the handcuff down the table. But it had been locked above the support beams on the bottom, and she couldn’t slide it down the leg. When she tried to yank the table on its side, she found that she couldn’t move it. It was a normal fucking flimsy library table, and it wouldn’t  _ move _ . 

“I bolted it to the floor,” Tim said apologetically. “I’ve been planning this.”

“Oh my god, I’m being kidnapped in my own workplace,” Melanie said, dizzily. “Worst place to be kidnapped.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Tim said firmly, but he sounded like he was trying to reassure himself more than he was trying to soothe her. “I - I promise, okay? Nothing bad’s going to happen, I just need to talk to you. The restra - the cuffs are because you’re going to try to stop me from doing what I need to do, and I’m not  _ strong  _ anymore, and I need to make sure that you can’t stop me.” Something disturbed must have crossed Melanie’s face, because Tim quickly rushed to say, “ _ Nothing  _ bad is going to happen. I’m not that kind of guy - I mean, I guess I am, but I don’t want to be, I’m working on it but nothing’s changing - I’m fucking this up. I’m not going to touch you again, okay? I promise. I just need you not to interfere. Just - please, sit down? Please.”

Melanie sat down. There wasn’t really a lot else to do. She found her eyes drifting to the tape deck, still loyally churning, and despite herself all she could wonder was - why would he  _ record  _ this?

He caught her looking, and he smiled wanly. “The cassette’s important. I need them to know. I need you to know, and I need Sasha to know. You two are - you’re the most important people in the world to me, and you deserve to know why, alright?”

“Tim, what the  _ fuck _ -”

Tim took a deep breath. “Statement of Timothy Stoker, recorded live April 4th 2019, regarding his suicide. Statement be -”

“ _ Fuck you _ -”

“I will gag you if I have to. Statement begins.”

  
  
  
  
  


I’m not going to literally kill myself. 

Seriously, I’ll be fine. I’m going to survive it. Probably. I said suicide because - well, it is a kind of death, right? A death of the soul, or of the ego? Whoever I become won’t be Tim Stoker. 

But I haven’t been Tim Stoker in a while. 

Right. Um. I should start from the beginning. And, Melanie, I’m  _ really  _ sorry, but if you keep interrupting I will gag you. This isn’t a conversation. This is just me saying what I need to say. While I can still say it. 

You know about Danny. None of the stuff I went through as a kid really explains or justifies the shit I’ve done, but I feel like it’s context. I guess the important thing is that Danny, and my family, always made me feel - small, I guess? Unimportant. I always felt unimportant. 

We had this normal suburban life. My pops was an architect, my mum worked in marketing. Nice schools, good little Anglican family. But it just wore away at me, the way we would all pretend to be perfect when there was something so rotten inside all of us. My family were  _ bad people _ . I’m not saying my dad hit my mum or anything, he’s not like that, but I’m not sure my folks liked each other. Out of the four of us, none of us ever had empathy for another human being. Nothing in our lives was about helping other people, or being kind. When we gave to charity, when mum baked for the neighborhood bake sales, when I became a cop - it was never about helping people. It was about being a ‘productive member of society’. Making Mum sure looked good. Making sure Dad never had to show an emotion. And it was about being better at it than everybody else.

Everybody has roles, Melanie. We’re just actors in this great big play. It doesn’t matter if you’re good, so long as you give the appearance of being good. You’re only a man if you do the things men do. Women do the things women do, and nobody ever steps out of line. Families and couples and parents engage in this...intricate little dance, like wind-up ballerinas, and every step has to be perfectly in time. If you break out of that dance, then you fail. You lose. It’s really important not to lose, for some reason. I’m not sure why. I spent six months thinking about it, and - and I’m really not sure why. 

We didn’t have to be this way. I feel like if we weren’t so picture-perfect, if I hadn’t gone into the Academy and Danny hadn’t gone into law school just like good children did, then maybe we could have been real. But ever since I had seen that corpse I was so angry all the time, and I knew the Academy would let me do whatever I wanted, and Danny just found the perfect job that let him be as sociopathic as he wanted and get rewarded for it, and - and we kept on dancing that dance, you know? Little ballerinas. 

Sasha was the first person who cared about me for me. I knew she didn’t approve of the shit I did, everything I knew I could get away with. But she saw something in me that nobody else did, and it was like she healed me. She cared so much, and she was so intelligent and witty and dedicated and all of it. She cared about  _ justice _ , just like me. She cared about right and wrong and she’d do whatever it took to make sure the bad guys were put away. Even if she never went as far as I did, she understood me. And whatever I did, she always forgave me. 

I’ve been avoiding her because - because I ruined her life.

Sasha. Make sure Sasha listens to this, Melanie. Sasha, you remember the Brooks case, 2005? Williamson, 2001. Fuck, Campbell, 2014. The car bombing case, never solved. Henry Jackson - I never admitted it, but I took him out back in that spot in the forest and shot him in the head and burned the corpse. You  _ knew  _ he hadn’t - he hadn’t - you knew that I had -

It’s okay, Sasha. I took care of it, Sasha. I did it to protect us, Sasha. If they found out what you did then you’d get fired, so I’m handling the situation, Sasha. I’m covering for you, Sasha, so cover for me. Sasha. Don’t be a coward, Sasha, you know he deserved it. Yes, I planted it, but we’d never collar him without the evidence. We’re in this together, and we’re going out together. It’s you and me, against the world. Sasha. It’s us. I love you. Sasha. 

Sasha, I do love you. But I fucking ruined your life. 

You get that, right? I pushed you to do shit that you’d never do otherwise. I made you uncomfortable with the shit I did, and I walked over you objecting, and I always got you to agree with me in the end. I pushed you, I normalized it, I brushed away every concern you had. I loaded your brain with crap, and maybe it’s your fault for believing it, but it’s my fault for taking that toxic rot in me and infecting you with it. 

You aren’t an innocent in this. The Turkish case, 2010. I covered for you. But I know you only stayed because of me. If I had quit, if I had said that I was done with it, that my fucking righteous crusade of justice was over, I know you would have left with me. I got us sectioned. I trapped us. I trapped you in this job. I ruined your life. I ruined you. You were bright, and beautiful, and unselfish, and I hated that, because I needed to think that everybody was as selfish as I was. I wanted to drag you down with me. So I did. 

Of course I’ve been fucking avoiding you. 

I’ve been doing it to Melanie too. Melanie’s  _ good _ , in a way that I didn’t know people could be. All she wants to do is help. She’s not nice but she’s kind, and she’s not nurturing but she cares more than anybody. Melanie just - she just loves you. Without reservation. Even when you don’t deserve it. That kind of empathy, that compassion - I can’t even fucking imagine it. I’m worried that if I spend too much time with her, then I’ll ruin it. Like I ruined you, Sasha. 

It’s like she doesn’t even know the dance exists. Or like she does, like she saw the curtains rise and saw everybody take their places, but like she refused to participate. She decided not to play the game, and walked off the stage. I didn’t even know you could do that. 

So, Melanie, I decided not to tell you that I was dying.

Sasha knew, which is another reason why I was avoiding her. I didn’t feel like dealing with my mortality. And Melanie, I love you but you’re kind of selectively oblivious, and I think you really didn’t want to hear it. So I didn’t tell you. I thought that six months would be enough to cut off my connection with the Hunt, and it felt like I was free for a little while, but it came back. I started feeling...sick, again. In the head. It poisons my thoughts. It makes me want to hurt people, even people I love, even you and Sasha. It makes me angry. It makes me hungry.

I’m so hungry. I decided not to mention it. I didn’t want to burden you. But I’m  _ so hungry _ . 

I thought I could handle it at first. I thought I could just - accept it. That nothing mattered, so this doesn’t matter. Maybe this hunger was a good thing, right? Maybe I was feeling the evil thing within me dying, and when it died then I would be free. I was even happy, that the toxic and cruel thing in me had a name, had a reason, had a face. It was simple. I just had to suffer, and repent, and I’d be forgiven and saved. Nobody gets saved without suffering, right? 

But I’m not getting better. I’m getting worse. And I’m  _ so hungry _ .

I realized a while ago that I wasn’t going to survive this. That I can’t quit. My thoughts have been so muddled lately. I can’t trust my own thoughts, or myself. I don’t know what’s me and what’s the monster. I’m so angry, all the time. Even at you. I hate you, and I love you, and I love you so much that I want to kill you, and I hate you so much that I would just die if anything happened to you. It’s tearing me apart. You and Sasha - I love you so much, it makes me feel like a monster. 

I’m a disgusting, vile person. You said that there’s no such thing as good or bad people, just what we do, and you’re  _ right _ , but my thoughts are so diseased. Only some kind of - some maniac, has the thoughts I do. The thoughts about you. I’m the worst kind of person. I can’t beat this monster, I can’t choke it out, I can’t rip it out of me. It’s me. 

Tim Stoker and the monster inside of him are the same thing. I’m not saying there’s no difference, but they’re so closely intertwined I just can’t pull them apart. And if I were to kill it, that demon that infects me, I would die too. 

I’m so weak, Melanie. I’m so pathetic. I don’t want to die. I really, really don’t want to die. I don’t want to go to the Hell that I know is waiting for me, that dark damp that presses in on my chest and lets me scream and scream and  _ scream  _ -

Then I realized that there was an out. 

Mike Crew gave me the idea. He’s a demon, but he doesn’t  _ hurt  _ anybody. All he does is hurt himself. Not every fear demon is a rabid animal like me. I mean, they’re not sane, but they’re not mindless animals. 

Martin’s why I know I can do it. Sasha and I just couldn’t figure it out - you can’t just ex-fear demon somebody. What, one back alley surgery and Martin’s sane again? But I realized that it was the god of the Institute, whatever that thing is, that protects him. With the power of - what, the Beholding? Or whatever? You don’t care - Martin can separate from the murder power enough to be normal. He doesn’t have to sacrifice his life, or the man he loves, to it anymore. So how could I do it?

Then Sarah Carpenter showed up, and everything she said...I connected to it. She was right. It’s so meaningless, and people are so  _ nothing _ . Anybody who thinks they’re important or powerful or a hero is an idiot. Nothing in this world is meaningful or important at all, and if we all just accept that then we can finally let go and be happy.

Nothing in this world’s important to me but Melanie and Sasha. And this will protect them from me. So...if I submit to another force...I can stay me. Whoever I am. Maybe I’ll even be less of a douche. It’ll take a miracle, right?

I’ve been doing research. I think jumping off the Shard should do it. If I really just accept it, if I  _ want it _ , then it’ll happen. I won’t starve to death. I won’t become a monster. Melanie and Sasha never have to hear from me again, and they’ll be safe from me. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the only one I can think of.

And if it doesn’t work, then it probably wasn’t meant to work. The worst that’ll happen is I die, which is happening anyway, so there’s no reason not to try. It would probably be for the best. 

I’m leaving after this. That’s why I had to handcuff you - I told you, I told you all I ever want to do is hurt you, I’m sorry. You’d try to follow me and fix me and save me, and I can’t afford that. I thought for a while that you could, that you could just - do what you always do and want it hard enough and fix me. But you can't. I have to save myself this time. 

Melanie, you did save me. What you did for me - it was the opposite of meaningless, okay? It was the most important thing in the world to me. I’ve never been saved before, and you saved me. Even if you couldn’t fix me, or keep me human, it wasn’t meaningless. 

Sorry again about the handcuffs. I guess I could have just left a recording, but - I guess this was a final test for me, to see if I could look you in the eyes as I still explained this and still do it. I think those forces want that kind of commitment. It feels right. It’s a cruel thing to do to you, but I guess I’m not a very nice person. I just couldn’t think of a better solution. I guess there’s no good solution to any of this. No fix. No happy ending. Just this. 

Statement ends.

  
  
  


Tim took a deep breath. 

He scrubbed again at the tears that had been slowly building in the corner of his eyes. Melanie’s brain was rushing static, as heavy and powerful and cloying as the soft static of the cassette. It was still whirring. It wouldn’t fucking stop playing. 

He stood up from the chair, casually clicking off the tape deck and taking care to kick Melanie’s bag further away onto the rug where she couldn’t reach. He flashed a weak, terrible smile at her, strange and pained. 

“I’ll text Basira once I get to the Shard to come save you. I’ll leave the key to the handcuffs on her desk. Sorry again.”

“I hate you,” Melanie said. 

But that just made Tim smile at her, big and broad. “Did you know that was the first time I’ve ever told Sasha that I loved her? It felt good. I’m such an idiot, going my whole life without saying it. What’s the point? I feel good. I love you, Melanie King. I love you.” 

“You do realize this is the second time you’re doing this to me, right?” Melanie yelled, as loudly as possible - in case someone could hear, in case someone would rescue her. Rescue Tim. “You’re running off dramatically to go kill yourself,  _ again _ , and it’s getting really fucking old, Tim!”

“I know,” Tim said. “I should have died back then. We just...delayed the inevitable. You can’t fix this, Melanie. Some things shouldn’t be fixed.”

“I  _ hate  _ you -”

But Tim just walked over to her, slinging his own bag over his shoulders, and kissed her on the forehead. “Love you. Bye. Be safe.”

And he left. 

There was a clock in front of Melanie, on the far wall of the library. It was 5:20. Melanie knew roughly where the Shard was - in rush hour traffic, it’d take about thirty minutes to get there on the Underground. Ten minutes to get to the top. They didn’t  _ let  _ you just jump off - but, of course, the infernal fear powers that liked to fuck with her didn’t care much about that. 

Six pm. Tim had forty minutes, at best.

She could do this. There was something she could do, some way she could get out of this. She wasn’t in a fear dimension this time, there was no controlling reality. The real world didn’t work on dream logic. Did it?

Melanie stared at the handcuffs, and willed  _ very hard  _ for them to dissolve. 

That didn’t work, obviously. Melanie spent five minutes trying to wriggle loose, get the handcuffs down from the support beam. She couldn’t drag the table, because it was fucking  _ bolted to the floor _ . 

She didn’t know how to pick locks, not that she had anything to pick locks with. She wasn’t fucking Daisy, she couldn’t dislocate her hand or snap the links on the cuffs. They weren’t shiny, obviously well used and police quality, but they weren’t dented or rusted either. 

That took ten minutes. 5:30. 

Had he caught the first train? Was he sitting in the subway, quietly playing on his phone or reading a book, feeling good? Feeling  _ proud  _ of himself?

Melanie fucking hated him.

She hated him until 5:40. Then she felt very bad about herself and her place in the world until 5:50. 

For ten minutes Melanie just - wished. Very hard. She prayed, to the god that Tim seemed to believe in, and to that Beholding whatever, and to whatever weird force of the universe that kept her friends alive. 

Nothing happened.

The clock hit six. 

At 6:15, Melanie heard a far thump, the familiar sound of the door to the Archives opening. Quick, sharp footsteps echoed, and the door to the library was thrown open. 

It was Basira, long skirt and hijab windswept, staring at Melanie with wide eyes. When her gaze dropped down to the handcuffs, her eyes widened even further. She was clutching a small key in her hand. Too little, too late. 

“What the fuck,” Basira said. 

But Melanie couldn’t focus. She could barely even pay attention. Even when Basira unlocked the handcuffs for her, helping Melanie stand up, she just found herself shaking her head. She was really dizzy. It may have been all of the hyperventilation.

“I couldn’t do it,” Melanie said, head fuzzy, limbs shaking. “I just couldn’t do it.”

And in that moment, Melanie couldn’t decide who she hated more: Tim, or herself. 

  
  
  
  


They met up as a group at Georgie’s place. 

Basira called Daisy and Martin immediately, and sent them to the Shard to see if they could intercept Tim. Apparently Basira had gotten an alarming text ( **Tim:** Melanie’s handcuffed to a table in the Archives, key is on your desk, sorry, seemed like a good idea at the time. Sorry.) while they were all at the pub, and elected to go alone to check it out. Jon and Sasha met them at Georgie’s place, Basira stuffing Tim’s statement in her bag before escorting Melanie out of there as quickly as possible. 

They rode the train in silence, despite Basira’s prodding about what had  _ happened _ . Melanie just shook her head, chest feeling as if it was shaking apart. She explained the bare bones of the situation - Tim’s Pseudo-Suicide Attempt Part 2: It’s Personal - but found herself unable to talk about any more of it. She just hunched on the hard metal chair, thinking of quite a bit, unable to think of anything at all. 

When Georgie opened the door of her flat, face creased in concern with Jon peering over her shoulder, Melanie couldn’t take it anymore. She broke into hard, heavy tears, apparently freaking out Jon and Basira  _ severely _ , and let Georgie take her into her bedroom and hug her very tightly. 

They stayed like that until Daisy and Martin got back, both harried and grim. Daisy had alerted security at the Shard, but although one of the guards informed them that nobody reported a man jumping or attempting to jump. The guards had apparently been quick to tell them that there was no sign of a body, but that wasn’t as reassuring as they seemed to think. It could mean that he had survived. It could also mean that he was still falling. A lot of people disappeared in London.

Melanie let the others worry about this. She shoved the cassette at Basira, grabbed out of thin air one of those tape decks that were always popping up around Jon, and shut herself up in the bedroom upstairs. She couldn’t hear it from the first story, the sound from the ground floor muffled and distant, which was basically ideal. The thought of listening to that again made her want to throw up.

Jesus, just write a note like a normal person. Asshole. 

Her fear. Cloying, claustrophobic, and always rising, throughout that whole statement. He knew it, better than she did: that it was a promise to whatever gods Tim worshipped, that he could give all of this and more. One last satiation of that monster within him.

God. Whatever. Drama queen. Asshole. Fucker. 

After a while, she heard the distinct sounds of a muffled scream - not of fear or anguish, but of anger. There were some thumps, and a crash, and Melanie watched Georgie’s eyebrows rise. Melanie had a pretty good idea of what was going on, but she didn’t really care.

Sure enough, a few minutes later there was a hesitant knock on Georgie’s bedroom door, and Martin poked his head in. He looked very tired, and very resigned. 

“I’m taking Sasha to the shooting range,” he said. “She has some - stuff to work out. We might not be back tonight, I’ll keep you updated.”

“Sure,” Georgie said, “take your time. Everything alright?”

Martin smiled tightly, without humor. “Jon will explain later.” He glanced at Melanie, who had buried herself underneath a thick mound of Georgie’s ludicrously luxurious comforter and had spent the last twenty minutes zoning the fuck out. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll get over it,” Melanie said. Maybe that was overly callous or flippant or whatever, but Martin understood. Martin, of all people, would. 

He nodded and closed the door, and Melanie lay back down in the bed. She grabbed a book off Georgie’s nightstand, some random non-fiction about Haitian revolutionaries, and began reading it out of lack of anything better to care about. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Georgie asked softly. 

“You know,” Melanie found herself saying, mouth working seemingly without her input, “I think this is private.”

If nothing else in her life was private then this was, and Georgie didn’t push the matter. She just grabbed her laptop and worked next to Georgie, and neither of them opened the door for any more of Melanie’s coworkers for the rest of the day. 

  
  
  
  


Melanie skipped work the next day, and the next. Who was going to complain?

She didn’t skip the two days after that, but that was just because it was the weekend again. She didn’t visit Elias that weekend, obviously, since she’d probably end up stabbing him in the throat with a letter opener and get sent to jail herself. 

All of her coworkers texted her. She stayed at Georgie’s all four days, since the thought of going back to her empty flat depressed her so much she didn’t want to deal with it. Georgie accepted it without comment, and didn’t push Melanie to talk about what had happened. She eventually listened to the tape too, so it wasn’t as if she knew anything that Melanie didn’t.

There was still an angry red line stretching around her wrist. It had to be bandaged - she had cut into it so deeply as she strained against the cuffs. Whatever, man. Whatever.

At least it matched the other angry red scar on her other hand, the same one from the fishing line. Two identical bracelet scars, both from Tim. She didn’t know if that was the red string of fate or the mark of the beast. Or maybe both. That was Tim. 

She tried to catch up on editing the vlogs, but that depressed her too, so she passed the job off on Jon. Kind of rude, considering how she was actively avoiding him in his own house, but whatever. If he was offended she was avoiding him and not Gerry, then maybe he should take a page out of Gerry’s book and not give a shit about her life. 

She knew objectively everybody else was upset too. She should probably...help, or do something about that. But Melanie didn’t want to, and the thought of doing so exhausted her so much it was unbearable, so she didn’t. Martin and Basira had expressed that they were trying to look after Sasha, so that was probably the important thing.

Sasha, apparently, wasn’t upset. She hadn’t cried or made tragic little faces or anything. Apparently Sasha was just  _ really _ ,  _ really  _ pissed. Melanie found this highly relatable, and the natural result of spending too much time around Tim Asshole Stoker. 

If he was alive, would he tell her? No, he’d run off to Scotland or something and never talk to her again. He probably thought that she was better off not knowing if he was alive or dead. Which was wonderful and great and a totally rational thing to think, because the uncertainty wasn’t hurting worse than the actual alive or dead situation, obviously. 

The most she said about it was Sunday night, after a long and tiring day watching TV, reading, and mindlessly watching Kitchen Nightmares clips on YouTube. Georgie was lying next to her, apparently getting into an intense bidding war on eBay over a soon-to-be Barker. 

“I don’t think he actually changed,” Melanie said, and Georgie glanced at her in surprise. It was the first time she had so much as alluded to him in four days. “I know that he wanted to. He was working really hard at being a better person and accepting his mistakes and doing better and all of that. But, like, as a person. He didn’t change. He did this exact same thing for the exact same reason six months ago. He was always - violent, and he never actually  _ stopped  _ thinking of violence as the first-line solution to everything. He always had these beliefs about the world, and they never changed. The only difference is that he always thought of himself as the good guy, and then he moved to thinking of himself as the bad guy. I thought he had - I thought I had gotten through to him, but I didn’t. I didn’t do  _ anything _ .”

“That’s not your job,” Georgie said softly. “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Or doesn’t know how to be helped. None of this is your responsibility, Melanie.”

It was technically true. Melanie still felt like a complete and total failure! But it was technically true.

She went back to work on Monday, since there was only so much Kitchen Nightmares a single human being could watch before she went insane. Jon was surprised to see her get ready next to him, but he didn’t comment on it. They waited on the subway platform together, Melanie’s eyes scrunched up as she chugged a large black coffee as quickly as physically possible, with Jon standing next to her anxiously playing with the strap of his shoulder bag in a self-soothing stim. 

“Out with it,” Melanie said. She really didn’t want to deal with this all day. 

“You can talk to me,” Jon burst out, before abruptly flushing. He exhaled heavily, steading his nerves, and when he looked at her again he was solemn. “You’re always taking care of everyone, Melanie. For the last few years, I’ve always felt as if...if I had a problem, I could come to you about it, and you could help. You’d be very mean about it, but you’d always help. I can’t promise I’ll help, or that I’ll be very much good at all, but if you - need help, or just need someone, we’re all here.” He paused a beat. “All of us but Sasha, but she seems to be, ah - going through it.”

Melanie blinked at him, and opened her mouth to brush him off or pretend as if nothing was going on at all. But she found herself hugging him quickly and tightly instead, and held on just long enough to feel Jon’s feather-light touch against her back before separating and frantically continuing chugging her coffee so she could pretend that had never happened. 

Work was going to be very boring, Melanie swore to herself, as the subway ground to a stop in front of her and she embarked on her atrocious daily commute. She was not going to do a single thing, in a stunning deviation from the norm. She was going to play Daisy’s favorite video game,  _ Kirby’s Air Ride _ , and literally not give a shit about anything else. 

No visitors to the Archives! None! Society has progressed past the need for visitors to the Archives -

There was a visitor in the Archives. 

Melanie stood in the entryway to the Archives, staring dead into the cowpen. Behind her Jon was looking over her shoulder - significantly over, guy was still too tall to live - and she just knew that he had frozen like a rabbit in headlights. 

The cowpen was crowded with all of their usual suspects, with one glaring omission. Currently the loudest member was Basira, who was speaking empathetically and pointedly to their visitor. A visitor who...was a punk?

“You have to leave,” Basira stressed, hands held up in a position ready to strangle. “Melanie’s going to walk in every second, and she’s going to do her ‘no visitors in the Archives thing, society has progressed beyond visitors in the Archives’ thing, and you are going to get thrown out on your ass. I’m telling you this for your own good.”

“She really can’t take any new people right now,” Martin fretted. “I don’t want to see her snap. I don’t want to witness the destruction.”

“It’s okay,” Melanie said, defeated beyond all measure. Everybody jumped straight in the air, terrified, but their newcomer. “Just say your piece and get out.”

Their newcomer was short, with a heart-shaped face and bow lips. She was pretty, Black with half a head of box braids slung over her shoulder and an undercut on the other half. She was dressed in vintage clothing, with a reflective and shiny purple jacket, acid-washed jeans, and a grey t-shirt with some sort of faded, indistinguishable logo on it. The decal of the logo was cracked and peeled, so only a faint pattern of peeled cracks remained.

It took Melanie a second to see it, but there was a recognizable patch of white at one side of her scalp. Ouch, someone should talk to that girl about her dandruff problems. Maybe Melanie could recommend some Head & Shoulders?

“Melanie King,” the woman said warmly, nodding at her. “And the Archivist. What a surprise.”

“You’re in the Archives and you’re surprised to see the Archivist?” Jon asked. He stepped forward, glancing down at Melanie. “It’s never a good sign when they call me by my job title, Melanie. Nobody ever calls  _ you  _ ‘the Assistant’, it’s not fair.”

“The Archivist is a dehumanizing position,” the woman said cheerfully. 

“Aren’t all jobs under capitalism inherently dehumanizing?” Jon asked. 

“Yes, but this one  _ literally  _ dehumanizes you, so I’d call it exceptional in that regard.”

“Less so than working in, say, an Amazon warehouse,” Jon said thoughtfully. “We’ve been thinking of starting a workplace union, actually -”

“We’re not having any interviews with fear demons,” Melanie said flatly, stepping inside the Archives and dropping her bag on her chair. Everybody else took a few steps back, unwilling to be caught in the nuclear fall-out of Melanie’s temper. Everybody but the woman, who just smiled pleasantly yet mysteriously. “I’m not interested in your name, your infernal god, all the people you’ve killed, your life philosophy, whatever. Get out.”

“Very few people make it three years in the Beholding’s service and actively hate knowing things,” the woman said, almost impressed. “I can’t tell if it’s how you stayed alive and human or if it’s a miracle you aren’t dead.”

“I’m alive out of spite,” Melanie drawled, crossing her arms. “You have ten seconds to tell us why you’re here and get out or Daisy’s dropping you into the fog dimension.”

When the woman glanced behind her, she saw Martin holding one of his knives and Sasha’s hand on her gun. Daisy just looked murderous, eyes swimming with grey. 

“Right,” the woman said. She clearly wasn’t intimidated, despite all of that, but at least she was taking Melanie seriously. She withdrew an embossed envelope from an inside pocket of her jacket, and stepped forward to pass it to Melanie. Melanie glanced at Jon, who nodded, before cracking open the envelope. “My name’s Annabelle Cane.” She paused a beat, clearly searching for recognition, which only Sasha gave her. “I see. Well, I figured it would be a nice bit of fun to invite you to a party I’m having on Friday. The guest list is  _ very  _ exclusive, so I promise you’d be among friends.”

“Among fear demons,” Melanie said flatly. 

“Many of whom are your friends!”

“I’d hardly call Mike -” Melanie stopped short as a memory hit her over the head. She gasped, and Annabelle’s mouth stretched into a smile. “You’re that woman who Jude Perry and Mike Crew and Jared Hopworth and Jane Prentiss all say that they absolutely hate!”

“You caught me!” Annabelle said, smiling pleasantly. “And can I just say, Melanie,  _ huge  _ fan of the show. I love the overarching seasonal plots you’ve had lately, really spices up the formula.”

“Anybody who Jude Perry hates is probably a decent person,” Melanie said firmly. She scanned the invitation - it was embossed and fancy, with the words ‘You are cordially invited, blah blah blah’ scrawled across the top. “Why do you want us there if it’s a fear demon event?”

But Annabelle just giggled. “It’s for the who’s-who of the supernatural world. What makes you think you wouldn’t be invited?”

Uh, Melanie’s entire life? “And we should show up...why, exactly?”

Annabelle’s black eyes glittered mischievously. “Peter Lukas is going to attend. I hear his family’s absolutely forcing him, man goes to one party a year. If you want to run him out of town, I suspect that this would be your best change.”

Hm. Melanie squinted at her. “And this wouldn’t be a convoluted scheme or plot to twist us to your bizarre and unforeseen ends, would it?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Yeah, seems kind of pointless.” Melanie shrugged, dropping the envelope back on the desk. “Fine, whatever, we’ll be there. Now get out.”

“Of course!” Annabelle waved a hand at the group, all of whom wore varying expressions of suspicion. “Great to be on the show! Such a big fan! Looking forward to your attendance! Bye, darlings!”

And, just like that, she left. Thank god. 

Everybody was staring at Melanie in various stages of disbelief. She just shrugged and dropped heavily into her chair, spinning slightly in it before propping her boots on the wood. 

“There is no way this isn’t a convoluted plot,” Basira said flatly, crossing her arms. 

“It cannot be safe to attend a party made entirely of fear demons,” Daisy pointed out. 

“I  _ really  _ don’t think this is a good idea,” Martin stressed, wringing his hands. 

“I think it sounds like a good - right, bad idea, definitely,” Jon said.

But Sasha’s mouth was drawn tight, and her arms were crossed. “As the only one here who actually reads the fucking statements, can I just say that Annabelle Cane is bad fucking news? She’s part of the Web.” At everybody’s blank expressions - and Jon’s horrified one - she quickly followed up with, “She’s part of the fear of spiders. She’s a literal human spider.”

“Which is it,” Martin asked, “human or spider?”

“She’s a spider person.”

Jon squinted. “Like Spider-Man?”

“Yes, Jon, like Spider-Man. If Spider-Man was evil.” Sasha pinched the bridge of her nose severely, cueing Jon to shut up. “Melanie, you can’t possibly be thinking of going.”

“Worst she can do is -” Melanie stopped short, forcing the words ‘kill me’ back down. That was a really shitty thing to do to her friends. Prancing around acting like her own death wouldn’t matter - no matter how down she was feeling, there was no excuse for that. “It’s worth the risk,” Melanie said firmly. “None of the fear demons have actually tried to hurt us, even if they’re dicks. If they went out of their way to invite me to their little shindigs, then there’s a lot easier ways to bump me off. This sounds like the best chance we’re going to get if we want to strike at Peter Lukas. We only have a week to prepare a game plan, so we better get cracking.”

“How many of us does that reservation invite?” Daisy asked, arms crossed. 

Melanie checked it. “It says Melanie King and Archival Staff.”

“Great, all of us, then. What’s the plan?”

Just like that, they were all looking at her - all waiting, all expectant. All completely confident that she could help them, that she could figure out everything wrong and evil and still make it through alive. That she could save them, if not from the world then from themselves. 

“You guys figure it out this time,” Melanie said, exhausted. She stood up from her chair, grimacing. “I’m going to go play video games. Have fun with...all of this.”

She shut herself up in the library, and didn’t come out until lunchtime. 

It was actually quite relaxing. Melanie should completely give up on it all way more frequently. When was the last time Melanie had done something completely disregarding the feelings of others? 

Okay, last week, but still. 

Part of her wanted to check on Sasha, make sure that she was dealing with things well, or at least get a front row seat to her mental breakdown. Sasha’s mental breakdowns were always entertaining. Something about the schadenfreude of seeing such a perfect, put-together person absolutely lose her shit felt good, because it made Melanie feel better about losing her own shit. 

The only direct indication she received as to Sasha’s mental state was when Melanie joined the rest of the Archives for a subdued lunch, chewing on their meals as they sat around one of the picnic tables outside. They always tried to take advantage of nice days when they could get them, and as London warmed into April they had started taking their meals outside again. There weren’t a lot of picnic tables and sometimes other employees ‘wanted’ to ‘use them’, but Martin usually chased them off. They decided it was restitution for being stuck in the basement, and in the spirit of inter-department cooperativeness they also chased away any unfortunate employees from the only other picnic table so the bedraggled remnants of Artifact Storage could use it. 

They weren’t sure Artifact Storage liked them as much as they liked Artifact Storage - they seemed rather scared of them, actually, which wasn’t helped by Melanie casually mentioning that she was dating Barker of Barkers fame a few months ago - but it was worth extending the hand of friendship. 

“I have a plan for the party,” Sasha said as they sat down at the table, with absolutely no lead-up. 

Melanie blinked at her, cracking open her warmed tupperware full of spaghetti. “Already?”

“It’s in progress,” Sasha said grimly. “I won’t mention it until I’ve worked out all of the details. But it’s going to fucking work.”

“I...great!”

“He’s going to regret ever being born.”

“I’m...really happy for you!”

Sasha’s dark eyes smoldered with pure, vibrant, shining hate. “Peter Lukas is going to die. We’re going to make him  _ wish  _ he was dead. We’re going to make him wish that he had never heard of the Magnus Institute, and that he had never met the Archives.”

Melanie did not know how to broach this. “You know that he’s not responsible for what happened to...like, the worst he did was poach Daisy?”

“I don’t care. I want to kill somebody so I’m killing somebody.”

“...great! Good for you! Slay, queen!”

Sasha’s bloodlust was heartwarming and affirming, and Melanie had to suppose that it was cheaper than therapy. It also reaffirmed to Melanie that she had made the right choice in leaving things to her. She had served well as emergency second in command, and Melanie was proud of her in an emotionally distant, absent father kind of way. 

Making a decision, she slapped the table and got everyone’s attention. “We’re all supporting Sasha’s homicidal tendencies!” She announced. “She deserves to kill anybody she wants!”

Everybody nodded vigorously. “We’ve lost all of our most violent members,” Daisy panned, “so it’s necessary.”

“ _ You’re  _ one of the violent members,” Martin accused hypocritically, “you don’t get out of being the muscle just because you’re secretly not a serial killer or something!”

“It’s okay, Daisy,” Jon said loyally, patting her hand, “you’re always a serial killer to  _ me _ .”

“Thanks, Jon.”

“Let’s workshop the plan,” Basira said to Sasha, nodding firmly. “We only have a week to destroy that man so completely he can never show his face here again.”

“We can do it!” Jon said, punching the air. “With the power of friendship!”

“And extreme violence,” Martin added. 

“I like the violence part the best,” Daisy said aggressively, “because I  _ am  _ very violent! Despite not having killed anybody!”

At least they were all working together again. At least there was that. 

Tim would be happy if he knew. It would probably reaffirm everything he had thought: that the group really was indestructible when they were together, and that they were together so long as he was gone. 

Their team had been splintered  _ because  _ he was gone, but don’t worry about that. It helped, maybe, that he may have just done the equivalent of jump ship instead of die. Maybe. 

Out of curiosity, after lunch Melanie had Daisy break her into Peter Lukas’, previously Elias’, office. It seemed different without Elias there, missing a certain presence and smarmy white man. It was dusty, obviously long gone uncleaned, and there was a lot missing: documents, cassette tapes, the contents of a lot of file folders. Evidence, likely. The cops never gave anything back. Tim had told her that was on purpose, he had gotten a great speaker out of it one time -

She flipped on the lights in the office, illuminating the empty room in a soft glow. 

The filing cabinets on the other side of the room, visually, resembled every other filing cabinet she had seen in her life. The most unique aspect was how many of them there were: almost covering the wall. 

Melanie cracked her knuckles, and bent down to scan the labels of the file folders. Tax reports, certificates, federal regulation documents...employee contracts. 

She yanked out the drawer, easily finding and picking out the folder for the Archive team. She sat down on the ground, leafing through them. They were all relatively identical, and just as Melanie remembered from her signing her own job contract. Only Jon’s was different. 

Melanie squinted at the fine print at the bottom. There was...a clause not to sue if the signee became a vessel for an Eldritch being. Damn, had nobody taught that guy to read the fine print in contracts? 

But she didn’t find what she was looking for, no matter how many times she flipped through the papers. Basira Hussain, Martin Li Blackwood, Alice Madeline Tolbert (hilariously), Melanie Elaine King, Sasha James Martinez...

No Timothy Ji-hoon Stoker. 

That’s right. Come to think of it, Tim had never  _ officially  _ worked for them. He just showed up because Elias made him. Actually, since Elias was in jail, there probably had been no reason for him to show up the past two weeks. He probably wasn’t in the system at all. She knew that he had been getting paid for the two weeks he worked before he got eaten by the coffin, but it was probably through a third party, like a temp agency…

Hm. 

Something was off, and it wasn’t until Melanie replaced the files that she realized what it was. She checked the handle of the employee contract filing cabinet, including the little locking mechanism. She checked the handle of the filing cabinet above it, and of the one below it. 

The others were dusty. The employee contract one wasn’t. 

What this meant - or if it meant anything - Melanie didn’t know. She locked the door behind her, mind working furiously. She wanted to ask Sasha to hack the employee database to see if Tim was in  _ that  _ one, or if there were any special marks to his record, but something stopped her. It was probably best for Sasha to focus her attention on the future, instead of the past. 

It probably wasn’t important. Melanie didn’t know if pledging loyalty to another Sto - Force meant that you didn’t have to show up to work at the Magnus Institute anymore, but she supposed that they’d find out soon enough. 

Maybe. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for further slightly gendered violence and suicidal ideation and behavior. 
> 
> If you're interested in a further look into 'what the fuck is going on with Tim', I have a short story from his viewpoint posted on my Tumblr theinternationalacestation under the 'my writing' tag. Enjoy. Next chapter will be happier.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you all so much for reading. I have a surprise at the end. :)

The week passed quickly, but that was probably because Melanie was zoned out for most of it. It wasn’t until Friday evening that Melanie realized that she didn’t even really  _ own  _ any formal clothing. 

“Uh,” Melanie said to Georgie, feeling like an idiot, “sweetie -”

“Yeah, I ordered your tux two months ago. I took your measurements when you were sleeping.” Georgie shrugged as Melanie’s jaw dropped open in outrage. “Are you complaining?”

She was not. And Melanie  _ really  _ loved her girlfriend. 

The tux was gorgeous and exactly Melanie’s level of preferred gender expression. Georgie also refused to tell her how much it cost, which meant that it was really expensive. It was black, with highlights in a subtle green that complemented her hair perfectly, and after Gerry spent about an hour attacking her hair with mousse and her face with very subtle makeup, she felt very cool and ready to face down a room full of fear demons.

Just kidding. But the expensive suit helped.

Jon didn’t seem as bolstered by his own courtesy-of-Georgie suit as she did, tugging anxiously at the sky blue jacket and straightening his waistcoat. Georgie had done something mysterious to his hair that made it very fluffy and polished, and every two seconds she slapped his hands away from messing with it. 

“This is why I have a bun or a ponytail,” Jon groused, expertly evading Georgie’s corrections as they waited on the curb for their taxi. “So it doesn’t get  _ ruined _ .”

“Can’t you be masc for once in your life?” Georgie asked, ignoring Jon’s wounded gazelle sound. “We haven’t dated for ten years and here I am, still buying your clothing.”

“I would buy my  _ own  _ clothing if you  _ let me  _ -”

“You can be femme if you want to, Jon,” Melanie said supportively. “Live your dreams.”

“It’s called twink if you’re a guy,” Gerry said, typing away on his phone. Both he and Georgie had, somehow, gotten their own invitations to the party, which Melanie didn’t want to think too hard about in case she learned that Annabelle Cane was another one of Georgie’s ex-girlfriends. Georgie was too emotionally repressed and socially awkward to have a lot of exes, but she did have flings with the strangest people. “You’ve admitted you’re queer now, you can change up the lingo.”

Jon, very predictably, bristled. “I’m not a - a that! I resent attempts to simplify me and Martin’s dynamic into a ‘twink’ and ‘bear’ situation!” He made actual air quotes around the words. 

“Yeah,” Melanie said, who didn’t want to think about the word twink in relation to her nominal boss. “They’re more like Bert and Ernie, you know?”

“Gerry, you’re wearing a leather jacket and a sarong,” Georgie said. 

“I can accept Bert and Ernie,” Jon said, mollified. “We can’t all be the most masc person in London, Gerry.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of the paragon of masculinity,” Melanie said, as Georgie nodded in agreement. Just like Jon was objectively strikingly hot - which the gorgeous and expensive suit was  _ not  _ helping, by the way - Gerry was objectively one of the most masculine and cool people ever born. Melanie couldn’t explain it. Schwartzenegger was nothing in comparison. 

But when the taxi finally rolled up, Melanie couldn’t keep from anxiously checking her phone. Sasha had reported two days ago that Annabelle had agreed to help them, almost suspiciously quickly, and Daisy had moved to help gather the materials. Basira had done the research into Annabelle herself, only to find that they really had nothing solid on the woman at all. A few people talking  _ about  _ her, but Melanie didn’t like to listen to hearsay. It was why she reserved judgement on that Messiah of the Eternal Flame Adelard Dekker guy - she hadn’t heard that he torched his own cult from the horse’s mouth, so she wasn’t listening to gossip. They didn’t exactly have a lot of time to practice to make sure that everything was perfect, but Melanie was confident in her ability to wing it. 

Annabelle’s house - or, maybe, just the house she was using for the party - was some ridiculous Tudor thing out in the country just outside London. Three levels, perfectly white and prim, and softly lit from within with the faint sounds of music playing inside. The little plaque in front proudly proclaimed it a ‘historical building’, and Melanie immediately clocked it as being built in the early 1600s. Reminded her a little of Broomfield House or Eastbury Manor House, actually - oh, man, look at those arches - is that an oriel window?

“What a flammable building,” Gerry mused. Melanie elbowed him in the side. 

As Jon held open the door for them to enter the house, Melanie forced her back straight, her expression firm, and fixed her jacket. Do  _ not  _ show fear. Forget about what’s been bothering you. This was their best opportunity, and she couldn’t afford to mess it up now. Focus on what’s in front of you, and the problem today. 

The house was large, feeling almost cavernous with its arched ceiling and ancient wood. Softly lit by yellow lamps, the walls were rimmed by carved wooden side tables and tasteful decorations, giving off the unmistakable air of tactful and tasteful wealth. The floor was populated by unfamiliar people standing around, drinking champagne out of flutes and talking softly with each other.

Melanie had to fight hard not to let her legs lock up in fear. Fear of what, she wasn’t sure, but there was definitely a form of fear. Fear of rich people, fear of soul sucking fear demons, fear of rich soul sucking fear demons - not that all rich people  _ weren’t  _ soul sucking fear demons - how was she going to  _ do this  _ -

“You girls have fun,” Jon said vaguely, waving at Georgie and Melanie. Gerry, standing next to him, prodded away at his phone without looking up. “Gerry and I are going to go find the food and hide in a corner. You go mingle and we’ll catch up later.”

“Why can’t I -”

“You are not getting out of this one without schmoozing,” Georgie threatened cheerfully, linking her arm through Melanie’s like a vice. “Is that the Cult of the Desolation? Oh, we absolutely have to go say hello, Diego owes me money and I think you can squeeze him.”

“I can  _ what  _ -”

Astonishingly enough, when Georgie dragged her over to say hello to the cult that worships the god of fire, hatred, capitalism, and burning, Melanie didn’t die. Everybody smiled or grunted at her. Jude Perry, especially, seemed happy to see her again. 

“I totally had bragging rights for months over that interview,” Jude boasted, champagne flute melting a little in her grip. “It’s not every day you get to talk about the sanctity of fire with someone who really gets it, you know?”

Everybody around her nodded, for some obscure reason. “The hijinks are funny,” Arthur grunted. “Liked the episode where you did that playthrough of  _ Kirby’s Air Ride _ .”

“We’ll do a sequel?” Melanie asked, confused, to ragged cheers. 

“Can you make a patreon reach goal that you’ll set an employee on fire?” another cultist asked Melanie. “You haven’t set anyone on fire yet.”

“I’m not planning on it?”

The cultist just nodded sagely. “It’s enough to watch you all suffer under capitalism.”

“Speaking of capitalism,” Georgie said sweetly, “how’s business, Diego?”

Diego blanched. 

After they escaped that conversation - or, more accurately, Diego escaped them - Georgie dragged Melanie into another room. It was clearly more of a living room instead of a lobby, with plush couches and an elegant coffee table in the center. In the corner another group of severe people were huddled, scowling at everybody else. 

Georgie was undeterred. She waved happily at the group, tugging Melanie forward. “Manuela, it’s been ages! How’s your unholy ritual going?”

“Terribly,” Manuela spat. “A certain  _ someone  _ is  _ over  _ his  _ space phase _ -”

“Nobody cares about space anymore,” a surprisingly young kid next to Manuela complained. He had a mean, pinched little face, and was wearing cargo pants and a black shirt with a Minecraft creeper on it. “We’re into Minecraft now. I’m making a mod that dumps people in debug mode and stops them from  _ ever  _ leaving.” The kid’s eyes widened when he caught sight of Melanie. “Hey, you’re Melanie King! Youtube prank channel girl!”

“That’s not  _ exactly _ what -”

But the kid was already practically jumping up and down, tugging at Manuela’s sleeve until she sighed in an expression of perfect anguish and depression before passing him a phone. “Will you take a selfie with me? I wanna flex on Tommy Lukas, he sucks.”

“Sure,” said Melanie, whose life was weird enough already. “Why not?”

“Pog!”

As Melanie squatted down to take a selfie with a thirteen year old fear demon of the darkness and Georgie passed Manuela an ominous looking pamphlet in exchange for an overstuffed envelope, she considered how her life had gotten to this point. 

Then somebody else tapped her on the shoulder, an exceptionally pale girl with blonde hair so light it was almost white wearing a sheepish expression. “Are you Melanie King? From the prank channel?”

“Suck it, Hayley Lukas, I got to her first!” the kid bragged. 

“Suck your own dick, Callum Brodie!”

“Suck  _ my  _ dick -”

“Why don’t I take a picture with both of you?” Melanie suggested desperately. 

“Callum does  _ not  _ fit in with my Instagram influencer aesthetic,” Hayley complained. “He’s all Sid from Toy Story and I’m totally Elsa.”

All of this raised a lot of questions about why a girl from that family obsessed with being rich snobs was an Instagram influencer, but Melanie supposed that there was nowhere lonelier than the top. 

Faint piano music drifted through the rooms, silk dresses dragging lightly on polished floors, and Melanie was being accosted by teenagers. Normally when Melanie went to parties she was the one who was lingering awkwardly in corners, never knowing more than a few people and always unwilling to talk. But this time people kept on coming  _ up to her  _ and asking if she was really _ the  _ Melanie King, and she had no idea why this was happening to her. 

Better make her grand escape. After another Lukas - Hayley’s mother, who Hayley referred to stoically as Diana - approached her about a sponsorship deal, Melanie was finally able to slip away. She waved at Georgie, who was enthusiastically bargaining with some hollow looking person about a business deal, before escaping into the adjacent room. 

This room was definitely more of a ballroom, and far emptier. In fact, it was almost completely empty: there were a few tables set up, empty folding chairs circling them like vultures around a corpse, but the most notable feature was the large grand piano in the corner and the burly man playing it. It was pure black, rimmed with gold accents, and there were several plush velvet couches lined up against the wall. The man sitting on the bench was the only other occupant of the room, gracefully plucking out a lilting and ethereal tune on the piano with hooded eyes and a serene smile. 

Melanie decided not to bother him, and dropped down on one of the couches. She was not hiding from the entire party. She was...figuring out a plan. The plan that involved not having to talk to anybody. She was figuring out that plan. First step: hiding from everybody. 

She absently checked the group chat, reading with faint interest everybody’s reports on their progress. Annabelle was invaluable in their plot, although nobody was quite sure why she was going to such lengths to help them. Maybe she just really enjoyed fucking with people?

**Basira:** O SHE BRINGING OUT THE KARAOKE MACHINE

**Daisy:** man this girl really likes fucking with people huh

Yeah, it was likely. 

“Hiding from your admirers?”

For a brief second Melanie thought that the man was speaking into his phone, or even just to himself, but when she looked up from her mobile she saw the man glancing at her. He hadn’t stopped playing, the ethereal and gentle song echoing through the room, but he was undoubtedly smiling at her. Melanie hated it when strange men thought that they had the right to talk to her and didn’t really want to reply, but she figured it would be rude not to. That’s how strange men got you. 

“I guess.” Melanie shrugged uncomfortably. “Turns out a lot of people here watch my show.”

“Of course they do! It’s quite entertaining. Our community is rich in drama and excitement, true, but it is quite lacking in fun.” The man winked at her roguishly. “Mikaele Salasea. It’s a pleasure. Are you enjoying the party so far?”

“Sure,” Melanie lied, still completely uncertain of who this guy was. Sasha probably knew. “Uh, did Annabelle hire you as the musician or something?”

“A flatterer, too! You’re all that and more, Miss King. No, this is just a hobby of mine. I’m afraid I’m a merchant. I specialize in...rare antiques.” He winked at her again, definitely under the impression this made him look cool. “Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings.”

“Cool. Do you owe Georgie money?”

“So many irrelevant questions! May I ask one of my own, Miss King? Or perhaps an observation.” Salasea finished up the song with some long, twinkling notes, rapping the last key with a surety that left the note reverberating in the air. He twisted around to face her, insipid smile still on his face. “What do you think it means to be optimistic?”

Melanie blinked at him. 

It was a ridiculous question, and one with an easy answer. “It’s when you choose to believe that things will always turn out for the best, right?”

“What interesting wording. A choice. It is a choice, isn’t it?” Salasea played out a few bars of a song Melanie didn’t recognize, before frowning at the keys. “Life is curiously bereft of choices. Oh, we think of ourselves as captains of our own fates. I’m sure some of us are. But the rest of us? We’re closer to driftwood pulled to and fro by the raging sea.” At Melanie’s blank look, he added, “I’m a sailor, all of my metaphors are sea based. I’m afraid it’s somewhat obligatory. But don’t you agree, that there’s very little in life that we can control?”

Melanie just shrugged. “Sure. That’s true, I guess. But that’s not everything. There’s plenty in life that we do get to choose - if not what happens to us, then how we choose to react to it. We can choose if we take our shit out on other people, or if we’ll do the right thing for ourselves or the people around us. Saying that life’s inevitable so we aren’t responsible for our own actions is a bitch move.”

Salasea hummed, plucking out another light and delicate song. He frowned at it again - finding some fault in it that Melanie couldn’t hear. “So you’d call yourself an optimist.”

“Is this entrapment? Are you trying to get me to say Coolsville sucks?” Melanie sighed. “Yeah, I guess. Usually.” She found herself crossing her arms, slinking a little deeper on the couch. “I’m probably an idiot, though. I always thought that...you know, no matter what, things would turn okay. That’s what being an optimist is. But lately things haven’t been turning out okay. And me working as hard as I can to fix the things I can control isn’t making up for the shit that I can’t.”

“We’ve heard. I really am sorry for your loss, Melanie.” Salasea tapped out a mournful tune, an exaggerated expression of condolence, and Melanie rolled her eyes. “Have you considered nihilism instead? Most of us are subscribers to it. Pessimism, that loss of hope, can be quite comforting when applied correctly. I’d even call it protective.”

“I can’t do that,” Melanie snapped. “No, I  _ won’t  _ do that. I can’t live like that, like nothing matters or that nothing I do is ever going to matter. If I always feel like there’s no point, then I’ll never even try. If life has no meaning, then I’ll give it meaning. It’s not about - whether or not I’m successful in changing things or not. It’s not about win or lose, or good or bad, or that reductive binary. It’s about trying. So long as I tried, and I did my best - it’s not always  _ good enough _ , but isn’t that the point? Just to try?”

But Salasea just hummed, and when he started playing again he smiled. The tune was perfect this time, hitting every note with smooth elegance and perfect pitch. The song that he played was beautiful, rich and complex and vibrant with emotion. It made Melanie feel the echoes of happiness, the memory of cheer and satisfaction. 

“I knew I’d get it eventually,” Salasea said, and asked her no more questions. 

They sat in silence, the air unpunctuated by anything but the piano and the distant sounds of conversation, and Melanie tried not to feel somewhat trapped into a logical conclusion that she had been lead effortlessly into figuring out for herself. 

She knew what she believed. She had believed it for a long time. Those beliefs had to be worth something, had to be meaningful in some way that was more than intangible and invisible. Everything had been working out okay, so long as she tried hard enough. 

But had that been the point? Hadn’t the point always been to not let herself and her friends get pushed around, to stand up against loser eldritch forces and the cringe fear demons who annoyed them daily? Nowhere in that had been the assertion that she would always win - it had always just been the security that Melanie King didn’t let assholes push her around. 

She had failed Tim. And, in his own way, Tim had failed her. She had worked so hard, because she knew that she would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t at least try. It had been Tim who pushed her away, who hid what he was feeling, who accepted the hand she held out but who just couldn’t let it drag him up out of that darkness.

She had tried, and she had failed. It hurt so much. It was such a terrible failure, the kind that determined the trajectories of lives. Where lives stopped and ended. Melanie had never fucked up  _ this hard  _ before. 

Bad things happened. To everyone, all the time. Melanie couldn’t stop them. It wasn’t fair, and it sucked, and she hated it. 

But none of that meant that it was Melanie’s fault. 

She didn’t realize that she was crying  _ again  _ until her breath started hitching, and she felt hot trails down her cheeks. She frantically made to rub the tears away, embarrassed beyond measure to be crying at a party in front of a stranger, and stopped only because Georgie would kill her if she ruined her makeup. Quick, think of things that aren’t tragic - think of literally  _ anything else _ , be strong, be an adult, be courageous, be optimistic. 

A linen handkerchief appeared in front of her. It smelled a little like perfume. “Nobody’s going to be walking in here for at least an hour,” Salasea said. “Nobody has to know.”

She took the handkerchief and dabbed delicately at her savage and imposing eyeshadow, before giving up abruptly and letting herself curl up on the couch and cry. It was quiet - nondramatic, not sobbing or whinging or anything - just crying, endlessly, like the rise and fall of a fountain. 

True to his word, it was at least an hour before others started filtering into the room. By then Melanie’s make-up was thoroughly ruined and re-applied, and Salasea had transitioned into what sounded like ragtime. Some caterers had come by a while back to set up more tables and a buffet line, and Melanie watched the entire party gradually filter into the large ballroom. Elegant dresses sweeping on the floor, finely cut tuxes, and some truly disturbed looking people took seats around tables, talking animatedly with each other or casting appraising glances upon Melanie. She tried very hard not to look as if she had spent an hour feeling sorry for herself, and scowled at every one of them. 

The only person who approached her little corner was Annabelle Cane herself, cutting a fine figure in a glittering purple sequin tuxedo and a fine pompadour. Melanie tried hard not to feel gender envy. She approached Salasea, smiling fondly at him as Salasea lifted a glass of whiskey to her in a silent toast. 

“You two crazy kids have fun?” Annabelle asked, glancing at Melanie with a smile. 

“Went off without a hitch,” Salasea said, “but she deserves all of the credit, really. I barely even did anything.”

“Hey,” Melanie said, “you want to  _ explain  _ -”

“Don’t be so finicky, Melanie!” Annabelle laughed, as if she had played a funny practical joke on Melanie that Melanie had completely failed to notice. “Your friends are all at the corner table, if you want to join them. I believe our guest of honor is already here. Did you hear that he is really a class act at karaoke?”

Yes. Hayley Lukas had live streamed it on her Instagram. He seemed  _ so uncomfortable  _ as the crowd egged him on to sing  _ Don’t Stop Believing.  _ Classic. 

“Do I really want to know why you’re helping us?” Melanie asked, standing up and straightening her tux. If she squinted across the room she could see her friends sitting at a round table in the corner, animatedly speaking with each other. Daisy was drinking straight whiskey, and Basira was delicately eating a canape as Martin giggled at something that left Jon very huffy. 

“Maybe I’m part of the Stoker of peace and love,” Annabelle joked. 

“You know,” Melanie said, “I’m going to choose to believe that.”

Never mind how she knew that  _ Melanie had said that _ . In a stunning moment of emotional maturity Melanie decided not to worry about things she couldn’t control, and crossed the room to slide into the chair next to her girlfriend. 

“Medication is  _ good  _ for you, Jon, it’s called self-care.”

“I take plenty of Ritalin,” Jon said defensively, biting into a chocolate covered strawberry in a way that was unbearably and completely accidentally sexy. Which was at stupid odds with the words coming out of his mouth. 

“Prescribed, Jon. Taking  _ prescribed  _ Ritalin is self-care. Imagine how much more productive and focused you’ll be.”

“Medication’s overrated,” Daisy said, sipping her whiskey. She was wearing a gorgeous navy suit that matched Jon fairly well, and that complemented Basira’s burgundy satin dress nicely. “Doctors always trying to put me on medication. Drugging me up. I say no thanks. Flush that shit down the drain. I won’t be chained by the man.”

“You should take SSRIs, though,” Basira said. “Like, really.”

“Don’t you want to be a good example for Jon?” Georgie asked earnestly. Daisy’s face went through five stages of anguish as her big sister instincts warred with her hatred of authority. 

“I’m kind of being a hypocrite, aren’t I,” Martin mused, rubbing his chin. “My first psychiatrist was so worried that we would turn out in a  _ Halloween  _ type situation that he refused to treat me. Apparently I was an unusually aggressive eight year old.”

“I think you’re an unusually aggressive thirty one year old,” Jon said supportively and lovingly. He smiled goopily at Martin and took his hand. 

“You’re...so sweet, somehow,” Martin said, only a little pained. But he took Jon’s hand too and squeezed it. 

“I’m so over all of this,” Sasha said, perhaps understandably. She turned to Melanie, who did her best to look politely attentive instead of sympathetic. “Our psychological torture campagin on Lukas is working. We’ve been directing attention to him nonstop the entire party. Every time we see him, we drag him into another conversation and ask him to tell a funny story.”

“I bring up the one with the tuna,” Daisy said, stuffing a strawberry into her mouth, “Every time. He hates that one.”

“We’ve enlisted his cousins, too,” Martin said eagerly. “Did you know the guy has, like, a five hundred person family? It turns out that they’re  _ all  _ meat aligned. They’re  _ really  _ into family togetherness and affection. Turns out that he went all isolationist just because he hated growing up with eight siblings  _ that much _ . They’re all quite lovely, actually, Benny invited me to his Discord server -”

“Almost all of his cousins are under eighteen,” Gerry said flatly. “I’d become a supervillain if that happened to me too.”

“What do you have against teenagers?” Georgie asked, delightedly. 

“Do not even get me started.”

“The karaoke event was utter class,” Sasha said, sipping her own wine. “But after that I was able to implement Phase 2: tell everybody it’s his birthday. Very loudly. That’s when the evening went from good to great.”

“The entire fear demon community of Britain sung him the Happy Birthday song,” Jon said, somewhat dazed. “What is seen can never be unseen.”

“I  _ missed  _ all of this?” Melanie asked, outraged. 

“You said you wanted us to handle it, right?” Basira said. “So we handled it.”

And that, maybe, was that. It was only as complicated as that: Melanie couldn’t bear this weight, so they bore it for her. Maybe it had only ever been so simple. Melanie would try, as hard as she could, for as long as she could, and when she could no longer try then everyone she had spent so long trying  _ for  _ would step in and help.

Melanie couldn’t try right now. She couldn’t be optimistic and leaderly and the Melanie that they all knew and needed. But maybe she didn’t always have to be. 

Was weakness okay? Was it even acceptable? Nobody had judged her for being weak, for needing and pleading and always reaching and grasping for that affection she had never received enough of as a child. Melanie had thought that her weakness had killed Tim, had been the reason why he just couldn’t stay. Had she really done the best she could? Was it good enough?

She still didn’t know. If there had been anything she could have done, some way to win this game, she would never know. She could drive herself crazy, thinking that way. 

If there was anything else to say, Melanie didn’t get the opportunity. The lights dimmed slightly, and a spotlight flickered on to highlight Annabelle standing in the front of the room. Why did a ballroom have a  _ spotlight _ ?

A microphone crackled over speakers, and the dulcet sounds of Annabelle’s smug little voice resounded around the room. “May I have everyone’s attention, please?”

“It’s starting,” Sasha hissed, brown eyes alight with a fiery and sadistic glow. “The coup de gras.”

“Isn’t it coup de teat?” Jon asked. 

“Don’t contradict the muscle, Jon.”

“Right, I’m so sorry.”

“Why do you take being muscle away from me just because I’ve never killed anyone? I can kill someone! I can kill whoever I want!”

“Say that a bit louder, honey,” Basira said, sipping her wine. 

“Yeah, it’s cringe in this room if you  _ haven’t  _ killed anybody,” Martin said smugly, despite not having actually killed anybody either. That they knew of. Were they seriously going to get into a dick measuring contest about this? Right here, right now? Right in front of Melanie’s salad?

Thankfully, the ragged clapping at Annabelle’s words had subsided, and she was speaking again. When Melanie craned her head, she saw that the woman was standing at the front of the room, looking beneficently down upon her subjects. Beside her, Sasha drew out from her little clutch bag a - microphone?

“Thank you all so much for coming,” Annabelle was saying, smiling like she was the Duchess of Cambridge looking upon her loyal subjects. “You’re such a wonderful crowd. I totally appreciate you all coming out to see me tonight! Everybody give yourselves a hand!”

Everybody clapped, somewhat confused. 

“But I didn’t call all of you here just to eat, drink, and be merry! I also wanted to honor a very special guest here tonight. Will Peter Lukas please stand come to the front?”

The spotlight slid across the floor to land on...Peter Lukas, resplendent in his silly hat and stupid coat, standing in the corner of the room and looking terrified. 

Everybody was staring at him. Many of them, well acquainted with Peter, were snickering. Melanie suddenly understood the definition of dinner and a show. 

Beside Melanie, Daisy was smirking. She leaned in a little to whisper in Melanie’s ear. “You can’t disappear into the Lon - fog dimension if too many people are paying attention to you. You have to be hidden, or at least feel unnoticed. The Lonely feeds on your social anxiety. Why would it help you avoid fear and pain?”

“It sounds like a dick,” Melanie whispered back.

Daisy squeezed Basira’s hand, a tether keeping her grounded. “Yeah. It is.”

Left with no other choice, and incapable of disappearing, Peter Lukas slunk to the front of the room. The grimace on his face and his huddled shoulders did little to protect him from the hawkish, delighted gazes of the room. Public humiliation in front of a room of people who  _ fed  _ on schadenfreude...the final mistake. 

Jon had brought out the camcorder, and was obviously filming the proceedings. Melanie could practically see him compose the title of the vlog in his head: “CRINGE FAIL LONELY SEA CAPTAIN PUBLICALLY HUMILIATED IN FRONT OF COLLEAGUES”.

Hm. In retrospect, maybe the entire room frequently enjoying her vlogs made sense. Welp. If Melanie was a bad person she couldn’t really bring herself to care. Plenty of people were bad people, she wasn’t special. 

“Captain Lukas, thank you so much for coming! It’s always great for all of us here to see you. And Happy Birthday!” Annabelle paused to let everybody clap again. Peter Lukas looked strongly as if he wanted to sink into the floor. “Now, I wanted to take the time to administer a little impromptu awards ceremony. Everybody here knows that Captain Lukas has been putting a great deal of effort into the Magnus Institute. As the Director, he’s supervised a great deal of positive changes and innovations to the managerial structures! And, of course, he’s done an excellent job feeding the Beholding. I figured we’d give Captain Lukas some time to say a few words in front of the crowd. Don’t be shy, now, we have twenty minutes!”

She passed the microphone to Peter Lukas, who held it in a loose hand. He looked strongly as if he was staring down an invisible t-rex that hated him personally, and that if he just didn’t move it would go away.

Awkward silence stretched across the entire room. Peter Lukas opened, then closed, his mouth. Metaphorical crickets chirped. 

Beside Melanie, Daisy was losing her mind in silent laughter. Sasha had broken out into a wide, maniacal, and somewhat sadistic grin. Martin and Basira were laughing behind their hands. Georgie and Gerry were exchanging bet money. 

That was when Sasha executed step two of the plan. She made a signal to Jon, who nodded firmly. He passed the camera to Daisy for filming, and stood up from his chair. He raised a hand, letting Sasha pass the microphone into his other hand, and waved it until the spotlight skittered across the room to highlight him. 

“Excuse me? Excuse me, Jonathan Sims here. Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, you all know me.” He waited a second for the smattering of applause. “Quite right. I’m such a big fan of yours, Captain, I was wondering if you would answer a question for me?”

“Uh,” Peter Lukas said. “Really, that’s not -”

“Our viewers at Melanie’s Vlogs are deathly curious to know, Captain Lukas. Please, tell us - what’s your most embarrassing childhood memory? Spare no detail, please, our audience is giving their full attention.”

“Uh,” Peter Lukas said, sweating up a storm, “I’m not sure I - I’d have to say it’s when I was eight years old, at my family’s lakeside cabin in Loch Ness. As it turns out, the Loch Ness monster really is -”

And then he told them. It was, quite frankly, the most embarrassing story Melanie had ever heard in her life. If she didn’t hate the guy so much the secondhand cringe would be unbearable. As it was, the secondhand cringe was the most satisfying thing she had ever heard in her life. 

By the time he finished - or, more likely, by the time that Jon’s weird superpower had run its course, which was always anywhere from fifteen to twenty five minutes - Melanie had learned more about Peter Lukas than she had ever wanted to know. She could see the moment when the spell snapped: when Lukas’ jaw clicked shut, his eyes going wide. Annabelle must have seen it too, because she stood up from the chair where she had sat down and easily plucked the microphone from his hands. 

“What a wonderful performance from our very own Peter Lukas! Give him a hand, everyone!”

Everyone gave him a hand, quite enthusiastically. It had been a hell of a show. Lukas, for his part, took advantage of the momentary confusion to back away from Annabelle and disappear through a side door close to the front of the room. Oh? He thought he could  _ escape _ ?

Their revenge had been had. It was time to hammer in the final nail, and deliver their ultimatum: that unless Peter Lukas got out of their house, today would be child’s play. Today would be just the beginning of the endless parade of horrors they would deliver unto him. 

She got up from her chair, intending on quietly slipping out to follow Lukas, but she found the spotlight -  _ where  _ was it coming from? - sliding to her instead. 

“There’s one more person in this room we’d like to recognize today. Would Melanie King come to the front, please?”

Melanie glanced backwards, at her startled team. Sasha shook her head - this hadn’t been part of the plan. Melanie made a sharp hand gesture, and Sasha, Jon, and Daisy got up from their chairs to go chase down Lukas instead. Melanie glanced at Georgie, who gave her a supportive smile and thumbs-up. 

Well. If Georgie didn’t see anything dangerous in it, then there wasn’t anything dangerous in it. Probably.

Melanie felt her neck crawl with the eyes of the entire room on her. The spotlight beat down heavily on her neck, an oppressive hand of warmth, and Melanie fought against raising her hackles as she slid into the front of the room next to Annabelle.

Annabelle was smiling widely at her, her sequined tuxedo sparkling in the spotlight into a thousand different dots of light. Melanie pulled a facial expression that she hoped clearly conveyed ‘what do you think you’re doing’, and in response Annabelle winked in a way that somehow clearly conveyed ‘I’m a fear demon of peace and love so just chill out’, except in a somewhat sarcastic way. 

“For our final award tonight, I wanted to recognize Melanie King in front of the group.” When Annbelle spoke it was warm, almost affectionate, and Melanie just couldn’t parse it. “Melanie King, we wanted to thank you. You changed a game hundreds of years in the making by deciding not to play.”

Melanie was struck dumb. She didn’t know what was going on. When she looked at her table all of her friends looked confused too - everybody but Georgie and Gerry, two strange holders of strange knowledge that Melanie couldn’t begin to understand. They were nodding. 

“For two hundred years, we were all stuck in this cycle. Once the supernatural was understood and quantified, it was exploited beyond all measure.” Annabelle’s eyes drifted significantly towards a table with a wrinkly old guy, sitting beside a serene Sarah Carpenter, and strangely enough to a petulant Callum Brodie. “We all pretended that we understood. The weird and wonderful ways that the world works without meaning, the amazing ways that life can flourish - we broke it down and quantified it. And everyone in this room sought to exploit it. We wanted to make it ours.”

Mike Crew, sitting at a table alone in the corner, broke out into a lazy grin. 

“Everything devolved into power games and petty squabbles. All we did was fight for...what, fifty years? Since Dekker, right?” Somebody yelled an affirmation in the back of the room. “Rituals, Avatars, the apocalypse, Institutes and Jonah Magnus and Robert Smirke - you know what they all had in common? They all told us what  _ we  _ wanted! These old white men, long since dead, are still controlling our lives!”

Annabelle’s expression was creased in something fiery, something passionate, and Melanie realized that she wasn’t talking to her. She was talking to the crowd: facing them, trying to draw something out of them that Melanie didn’t understand. 

“Who here  _ wants  _ the apocalypse? That stagnant, perpetual,  _ boring  _ world? Men who think themselves gods made a chessboard, and forced the rest of us to play a game for a prize we don’t even want. But that’s the way we always thought it worked, so we just went along with it! We didn’t know we could choose any differently!”

Everybody was listening - everybody was leaning forward in rapt attention to Annabelle, whatever she was saying. It resounded with them, in a way that Melanie could never understand. 

“The Institute’s always been the Institute. The Head Archivist’s  _ always  _ been the Head Archivist.” She paused to let the crowd boo. “Then a group of lazy bums stumbled into Jonah Magnus’ web, and decided that none of this mattered. Smirke didn’t matter, Magnus didn’t matter, the evil forces that control our lives don’t  _ matter _ . We all liked watching it. But admit it: we were all jealous. This group of idiot humans was still  _ trying _ . They still cared about each other. When had we lost that? Everyone in this room stopped trying years ago. We’ve grown lazy and complacent, guys.” Annabelle pumped a hand in the air. “No more! We’re fear demons, we’re badass bitches, and nobody tells us what to do! From now on, we’re writing our own destinies. Who’s with me?”

The room erupted into commotion. Melanie did not know what the fuck was going on. 

People were yelling, standing up and whooping with enthusiasm. Others were fighting, yelling at each other. Others were raising glasses in a toast. But Annabelle just turned to Melanie, giving her a much smaller smile than she had given the crowd. 

“Sorry about all the hoopla,” Annabelle said. “I just wanted to thank you, and show you something.” At Melanie’s dumbfounded expression, she gestured to the now riotous crowd. “I wanted to show you this. The way you try, and the way you never give up - I know it doesn’t always work out. But it meant something to all of us, to just watch you. You know? It was kind of inspiring. So thank you, Melanie King.”

“Annabelle,” Melanie asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer, “what... _ are  _ you a fear demon of?”

But Annabelle just smiled at her, small and real. “I told you. Peace and love. What makes you think I don’t get to choose?” 

Before Melanie could process that too fully, something smeared into existence out of the corner of her eye, and when Melanie whipped her head around she saw a very familiar crooked yellow door. What the fuck?

“You’ll want to go through that,” Annabelle said. “Don’t worry, it just leads to the garden. Somebody’s waiting for you there, though. You shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

Before Melanie could think too hard and second-guess herself, before she could let herself hesitate, she bolted forwards to the door. It swung open for her, silently yet heavily, and Melanie dived through its boundary confidently and without fear. 

The loud and rapturous sounds of the ballroom - the changes that she had wrought, the weird little influence in the weird little world that they all lived in that she hadn’t even known about - disappeared behind her, and Melanie fell upwards through eternity.

“Was she right?”

Melanie didn’t stop falling, but now Michael was falling with her. It was a relaxed, endless sort of falling, so Melanie forced her heart back in her stomach and reminded herself that there was no going splat when there was no such thing as a ground. Michael was frowning slightly, eyebrows furrowed, and they were wearing an outfit that she hadn’t seen in a while - a t-shirt and shorts, the same outfit that they had been wearing when they appeared in the Archives for the first time. 

“I’m happy the way I am,” Michael continued, as they fell upwards through endlessness. “The Spiral wants me to hate being me but I don’t want to. I like having fun. I like making corn mazes and making NASCAR race tracks into Mario Kart levels. The Spiral wants me to kill Helen or lose Michael Shelley to lies. I  _ like  _ lying. But I don’t like lying to myself.”

“Uh,” Melanie said, who was not and never would be equipped to handle Michael’s existential crises. They tended to contain more dimensions than other people’s. “It would really go against everything the Spiral stands for if you always did exactly what it wanted you to, right? Isn’t defying expectations what you guys are all about?”

Michael blinked at her once, twice, with far more than eyes, before they burst into a grin. “Right! I’ll let you go now. And remember your own advice, okay?”

“What does that -”

Melanie landed on a soft, grassy surface with a soft  _ oomph  _ and the sensation of all of her organs liquidating through her ears. She immediately felt a warm hand on her back, soft and gentle and light, distantly familiar. 

“Get the  _ fuck  _ away from her.”

The words registered immediately in Melanie’s mind as Daisy’s, but the voice was Jon. Why would Jon say that? He was a gentle soul. He was only protective when it came to -

Melamie groaned, and rolled over. She blinked blearily at the wide expanse of beautiful stars above her, and gave her head a second to stop spinning before she sat up. 

She was surrounded by people. Expectedly, three of them were Jon, Daisy, and Sasha, all of whom looked varying stages of angry and tense. Melanie was intimately acquainted with Daisy and Sasha’s ‘I’m two steps away from shanking a bitch’ poses, and Sasha’s gun was - holy shit it was literally in her hand. Melanie had never seen her actually draw it before.

“Okay, okay.”

Melanie turned her head, instinctively following the familiar voice, only to see Tim with his hands up backing away from her to stand behind Elias Bouchard. 

They really were in the gardens: the well-sculpted and manicured hedges framing cute little flower beds. April drew all of the flowers into bloom, soft ruffles of violent and sunshine yellow turned towards the stars. There was even a tea station further ahead, a wrought iron arch covered with ivy shading a small circular table and chairs. The perfectly manicured grass that Melanie was currently crushing under her big butt was dewey and springy, leaving her trousers slightly damp. It was close to seven or eight at night, but the garden was liberally dotted with lights and lanterns, creating an oddly dappled effect where the furious lights kept the darkness of the outside world at bay and dappled the strange scene in light and shadow. Melanie and her friends were standing solidly underneath a street-light looking lantern, huddled together in the light, and Elias was standing under his own softly lit lantern. Tim stood behind him, shrouded in darkness. 

“Melanie, are you okay?” Daisy crouched in front of her, extending a hand, and Melanie dumbly took it and let Daisy pull her up. Daisy pursed her lips and looked her up and down, clearly checking for any kinds of Spiral trauma but instead just finding garden variety Spiral confusion. She tugged Melanie back instead, pulling her behind Jon. He stood at the front of their little semicircle, and Melanie realized with a shock that his eyes were glowing faintly. His hair, broken free of its careful gel and style, was waving faintly in a nonexistent breeze. 

“I’m fine,” Melanie said dumbly. “What’s…” She squinted at Elias, who was wearing his usual suit and being smarmy all over the place. Tim was behind him, and in the shadows she could see that he was dressed in crisp suit trousers and a white dress shirt, looking embarrassed and ashamed and alive. “Weren’t you waiting another month to break out of prison?”

“A time sensitive matter came up, I’m afraid,” Elias said, waving a hand. Everybody else squinted incredulously at Melanie - reminding her that, maybe, she hadn’t exactly shared everything with them. “Do you feel as if you won our game of chess? You’ve pulled some surprising moves out of your back pocket.”

“Don’t equivocate,” Jon intoned dangerously. “Why are you both here?”

His words tugged at the air, but they didn’t seem to catch onto Elias. He just smiled, as Tim grimaced. Melanie didn’t miss how both Elias and Tim kept half an eye on Sasha’s gun. “We’re helping. And I rather wanted to watch the endgame. What’s taking Helen so long?”

“She’ll show up when the time’s right,” Melanie said, wiping at her mouth. She found that her hands were shaking, and she clenched them tightly. “You heard what Annbelle said back there. Why don’t you finally tell us the truth?” She clenched her fists so tightly that they turned white, before carefully relaxing them. She didn’t meet Tim’s eyes, and he didn’t meet hers. “Why don’t you tell us how you killed Jonah Magnus and  _ didn’t tell anyone _ ?”

Elias laughed - sharp, yet wheezing, and a little hoarse. It sounded as if he hadn’t genuinely laughed in a long time. Daisy, Sasha, and Jon gaped at Melanie, but she didn’t look at them. Tim wasn’t surprised, just pained, and Elias laughed and laughed. 

“Annabelle tipped you off, didn’t she? That’s fantastic. She’s become a real wild card lately. It’s out of character for her, but I suppose that’s what she finds fun about it.” Elias sobered a little, although he was still smiling. “Sure, I’ll tell you. Why the fuck not, who cares.”

Then Elias changed.

It wasn’t in any physical, tangible way. It was just...him slouching. He smiled wider - not like a cat that caught the canary, but like a human being. His entire body loosened, no longer held up with tight coils but relaxed and casual. But, somehow, everything about it was unmistakably different. Tim’s eyes widened from behind Elias, and Melanie didn’t glance backwards to check how everybody else was reacting. 

“I was like...shit, about your age? A bit younger? I started in ‘91, when I was 21, and I killed the motherfucker in ‘97…” Elias scratched his chin, languid and loose. “Yeah, I was younger than you when it happened. Kind of an idiot, to be honest. When my boss Mr. Wright called me into his office, I was like - shit, I’m finally getting out of Artifact Storage! I hated that fucking place. Nowhere to go but up, I guess!”

This was weird. 

“It wasn’t really about me,” Elias said thoughtfully. “That’s what still gets me. It wasn’t about the kind of person I am, the things I liked or what I did with my time. It was just about the fact that I was rich. I had a good lineage. Good degree. And that nobody would really miss me. That’s what it came down to. That’s what Jonah Magnus did: treat people like objects, because to him that’s all they were. That’s the first thing I learned from him. How to make people into things.”

“Oh, is that how you got the idea to just hire gay people whose families hated them?” Melanie asked sarcastically. 

Elias snapped his fingers. “Yep! As always, you got it, Melanie.” He smiled at her, faint and strange. “He said that I was getting a promotion. He locked the door. Then he pulled out the melon baller. Jonah Magnus scooped out my eyes. It hurt quite a bit. I screamed, also quite a bit. And then he scooped out his own eyes, without even  _ flinching _ , the freak, and put them in my empty sockets.”

Melanie didn’t say anything. She tried to imagine how much that hurt, and she couldn’t. 

“I learned everything - all about who he was, who the Entities were, his plans. How and why he was going to start the apocalypse. I felt him...crawl inside me. Trying to empty me out, and fill up the container of my body with his vile soul.” Elias took a careful, measured breath. “Back then, Melanie - I had been a kind person. I had always believed that...so long as I worked hard enough, tried hard enough, I could always do it. I was an optimist. And I wanted,  _ so badly _ , to stay alive. I wanted to live. I was alive. And Jonah Magnus hadn’t been alive in a very long time. His desire to live forever could never be as strong as my stubborn, stupid, selfish desire to cling to life.” Elias shrugged absently. “I overpowered him. I was stronger. And if anybody knew that I had done it, they would kill me too. This community is  _ vicious _ , and only the power and name of Jonah Magnus kept the wolves away from the door. I had his power - his final gift, payment for what he took from me - but I needed his name. So I took it. If I hadn’t done it, Melanie, my friends wouldn’t have lasted the month. Gertrude would have been cut off from the Beholding, and her thousand enemies would beat down the door and torch the place. Jonah Magnus had passed on the position as the Heart of the Institute to me, and if I abandoned it...nobody would survive.” He shrugged again, as if it was as simple as that. “It was easy to pretend to be Jonah Magnus. Any weirdness I explained away as growing pains for the new body. None of his stupid little friends noticed. Maybe they even liked me more.”

Tim was watching Elias with a grotesque, fascinated horror. Jon looked a little sick - maybe looking at a different future, unnaturally cognizant of how differently things could have turned out if Elias had lost that fight.

“After I left, the Archives fell apart. I saw it. I won’t go so far as to say that it was me leaving that made them all turn on each other, but it didn’t help. There was nothing keeping these awful, mean little people together, and they fell apart. I hated it, but what could I do? I was powerless, as usual.” His tone turned bitter, half-resentful. “So I watched, incapable of helping or doing anything besides hurt, as they tore themselves apart. I got used to it eventually. The Watching. I spent years doing everything I could do to dance along to Jonah Magnus’ tune - a puppeteer to the end, I suppose. Even killed Gertrude over it, though by the end I’m glad I did. Jesus, she was a witch.”

“But you changed your mind,” Melanie said slowly. “During that conversation, years ago. You gave up on that whole Jon thing, the apocalypse thing, all of it. So then what was the point of the last six months? Why are you still  _ doing  _ this to us?”

“I’ll be honest with you, Melanie. For the first time that we’ve known each other, I’ll be honest. What I really wanted was -”

Then a yellow door appeared in the air, and Elias abruptly shut himself off. The door swung open, and a vaguely familiar figure dropped from the air and landed on the dewy grass - much in the same way, Melanie suspected, that she had arrived. Far more graciously and cautiously, Martin dropped from the door to land feet-first on the ground, and Basira slid down after him. 

The last newcomer was Helen, who settled for poking her head out of the door. “Special delivery,” Helen said cheerfully. “ _ One  _ sea captain found making his great escape, and as a bonus two nerds who were chasing after him. Are we all done here? I have other dimensions I need to drop in on.”

“Thanks, Helen,” Martin grunted, climbing to his feet. “I think…”

But Jon’s eyes just flashed again, hair still tousled faintly in a false breeze, and Helen’s wide grin froze on her face. “If you value your life you’d stay away from him. He doesn’t abide liars.”

“Excuse me?” Helen asked, frozen grin gaining a few dimensions. “What was that?”

Jon blinked, shaking his head slightly and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t - I don’t know. Stop giving me a  _ headache _ , Helen, I told you it’s rude.”

“Of course.” Helen tittered a laugh falser than usual. “Well, gotta run! Someplace...else!”

The door slammed and disappeared, just in time for Martin to help Basira up. They both gasped when they saw Tim, and in the flash of a second one of Martin’s knives were in his hand again. Just how fear demon  _ was  _ that guy?

But they looked at Melanie first, and she just shook her head. “I haven’t asked yet.”

“You haven’t  _ asked  _ -”

“I’ve been busy, okay!” Melanie snapped. “Elias is finally giving that interview, this is journalistic gold -”

“You’ve lost, Jonah.”

Peter Lukas was scowling, dusting grass and dirt off his thick trousers. He crossed his arms, glowering at Elias. Elias was back to his Rigid Prick mode, the half-smile stretched cunningly across his thin features. 

“I have? Pray tell how, Peter.”

“Our bet was  _ simple _ ,” Peter said. He seemed more bedraggled than usual, somehow uncomfortably real and present. Peter was normally a healthy shade of translucent, but now Melanie could practically count his pores. “If you are  _ ever  _ indisposed as the Director, then you bet that I couldn’t remove any of the Archive staff from the Institute. Remember? Remember  _ that _ ?”

“I definitely do,” Elias said serenely. 

Wait. Hold the fuck up. 

“But you made a bet with me that the  _ Archives  _ couldn’t remove  _ him  _ from the Institute!” Melanie cried, somehow betrayed. 

“Honestly, Melanie, there’s no rule that I can’t have two bets going on at once,” Elias said, in full condescending Jonah Magnus mode. Or maybe that was just Elias Bouchard mode - Melanie had no idea the difference. She had the feeling that he didn’t either. 

“You’ve been playing us against each other for months,” Basira said, vaguely depressed about this. “And the bet you made with Peter about getting arrested was just to get him in place as the Director of the Institute.”

Elias made finger-guns at her, which confirmed the point. 

“And you  _ lost _ ,” Peter said triumphantly, jabbing a finger at Elias. “The bet would come to a close the minute you were available again to take the position of Director. You broke out of prison a month early. I never gave up and resigned. And I finally got  _ one  _ of them out of that godforsaken place. Tim Stoker’s an agent of the Vast now, isn’t he? You  _ lost _ , Elias. Now you  _ have  _ to go out with me -”

“Um,” Tim said quietly. 

“Why did I break out of prison, Peter?” Elias asked pleasantly.

Peter faltered, finger falling. “To - er -”

Then Elias turned to Melanie, eyes sparkling strangely. “What did you find in Timothy’s employment record, Melanie?”

“Uh,” Melanie said, sweating, feeling strongly as if she had failed to answer a test correctly and now her teacher had to walk her through it, “nothing?”

“Exactly. I never had Timothy sign the employment contract - the stress of belonging to the Hunt so thoroughly and the Eye at the same time would kill him even faster. I had to wait until the Hunt weakened a little bit in him. Or, you know, speed that along. And don’t give me that look, I know you don’t know these words, don’t worry about it.” Elias jerked his head at Tim, who still looked very sheepish. “I broke out so I could intercept  _ this  _ one at the Shard and have him sign an employment contract, of course.”

Peter opened his mouth, then closed it. Weakly, he said, “Then -”

“Tim Stoker is a fear demon of nothing,” Elias said simply. “I wouldn’t call him human, but he is free of the obligation to feed and of the poisonous haze that permeated his mind. Much in the same way Martin is.” He glanced shrewdly at Martin, who was abruptly sweating. “By the by, I recommend that no matter what happens, you two don’t quit the Institute or the Archives for a while. Give your respective demons some time to die down before you cut ties with us.”

“You trapped Tim in the coffin to kill off the wolf in him,” Melanie said blankly. “You couldn’t think of a  _ less  _ traumatic way to do it?”

“Five, but none of them were funny.” Elias grinned widely - not sly or cunning, but just pure happiness at a prank well-pulled. “I do believe the Archives won this bet, my dear Peter.”

“But they didn’t get me to quit,” Peter said blankly. “I still -”

Daisy coughed pointedly. “About that.”

Everybody turned to look at her. 

She just shrugged, crossing her arms uncomfortably. “I may have done something with the paperwork. And the tax forms. And the employment forms. And the temporary directorship forms. And the - look, I have Business and Finance degrees from Sorbonne, okay? You can’t just give me free reign over an entire business and not expect me to, you know...subtly fire somebody and funnel his salary into a vacation fund for me and my girlfriend…”

Everybody stared harder at Daisy. 

She hunched her shoulders defensively. “I  _ may  _ be officially, technically, kinda-sorta, the Director of the Magnus Institute? Just to embezzle?”

Somehow, the only thing Melanie could think of to say was, “And you didn’t  _ tell  _ us?”

“I was going to, but then I got distracted by my super hot and cool girlfriend.”

“Are we really taking a vacation?” Basira asked excitedly. “Can we go to France?”

“I’m wanted in France, and it’s a cringe fail country anyway,” Daisy said. “Can we do Turkey or something instead? I have contacts in Turkey.”

“Look at that!” Elias said, grinning broadly and freely. “Looks like we both lose, Peter! How sad. I really just loved being the Director of the Magnus Institute, my favorite job in the world that I took completely voluntarily. I’m crying so hard right now. I think I’m going to cry all the way to Tahiti, actually.” 

As dazed and shocked as everyone was, it was somehow Tim was the most surprised. He looked almost ready to fall over, his weak legs struggling to keep him upright. “You did  _ all  _ of that shit to me just so you could  _ quit your job _ ?”

Elias pulled a mock-sympathetic face, clapping him on the shoulder and making his legs buckle. “Nothing personal, kid.” But he glanced back at Melanie, eyes sparking with dangerous hints of electricity. “To answer your question, Melanie...I find that a little adversity helps friends stay together. Don’t act so surprised. You’re the one who gave me the idea.” He glanced meaningfully at Jon, who stiffened defensively. “A common enemy was the force that brought all of you together. I couldn’t help my own friends, no matter how hard I tried. Is it really so strange to believe that I wanted to help yours?”

“Yes,” Melanie said flatly. 

“Believe what you like!” Elias bowed to them, a theatrical villain exiting stage right, before straightening. He glanced at Peter - pores visible, hands clenched, vibrating with fury and all - and, strangely, smiled. It was small and faint, but there was something real about it after all. “I believe I owe you a dinner, Peter. Come on, then, before it gets late. I’m thinking French?”

Peter opened his mouth, then closed it, looking a little lost. “Jonah…”

“Elias, please.” But Peter stepped forward and cautiously, strangely, let Elias loop his arm around his. “I’m afraid I have the  _ strangest  _ story to tell you…”

And, without even looking backwards, they disappeared into the depths of the gardens, where no lanterns shone, into the dark. 

Melanie watched them go, feeling something inside her unlatch. She didn’t think that was the last they would see of Elias - no way they were that lucky. But, maybe, that was the last they would have to worry about him. 

She glanced back at her friends, who all looked to be in varying stages of confusion and worry. She stared at Sasha until she flushed and holstered her gun, before moving onto Jon, who sheepishly let the glow fade from his eyes and let his hair settle back down. Good. 

Then she looked at Tim, who refused to meet her eyes. He didn’t move from where he was standing in the shadows, eyes glinting a soft color that Melanie couldn’t name. 

Distantly, from inside the house, Melanie could hear the found sounds of music, and singing, and laughing. 

What was the point? What was the point of any of this? Melanie refused to ride this merry-go-round anymore, this tilting wheel of sorrow and regret. 

Things were going to be different from here on in. With Daisy in charge, any of them - save, perhaps, Martin and Tim - could quit at any moment. No more happy forever days, tepid and unsettled, wasting time away in a crowded basement. No villain, no outside force pushing them together. Now all they were left with was each other, and this strange and misunderstood thing stretching between all of them. 

“Let’s go back inside,” Melanie said suddenly, “I want to go dancing.”

Maybe that was all she wanted: a moment with Georgie, a hand on her waist and another hand clasped in hers, rocking in time to the music. She wanted to see Jon and Martin awkwardly trip over each other’s feet, watch Daisy and Melanie step in time together afraid and slow. See Sasha and Tim probably get into a fist fight, but just  _ make up already _ . 

It was Daisy who shrugged first, looping her arm easily through Basira’s. “Sure. Let’s worry about work on Monday, okay?”

“Sounds good to me,” Jon said feelingly. He glanced at Martin, who smiled at him and took his hand. “I should warn you, I really have no idea how to dance.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out somehow,” Martin said. 

“Then let’s go,” Melanie said, before shooting a glance at Tim. “ _ All  _ of us, asshole.”

They went inside together, complete at last, and let the door shut out the sound of the cicadas. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**epilogue**

Melanie frowned at the plaque on her door. 

Something about it rubbed her the wrong way. Technically speaking, she  _ was  _ ‘DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES | MELANIE KING’, but something about it just screamed pretentiousness at her. Maybe it was all those years making fun of Jon for having a plaque on  _ his  _ door? Daisy had scribbled ‘In Name Only’ on it years ago, and Jon had never felt the need to fix it. Probably because she hadn’t been wrong. 

It wasn’t as if Melanie had any subordinates to make fun of her. This was on purpose. If she had subordinates, then she would have to know what she was doing, and she would have to tell them to do things and make sure that they did it. Pass. It probably left Melanie with much, much more work, but that was alright. Be your own boss and all of that. 

Maybe she’d hire someone if they needed the Institute as protection from whatever cringe fear god was bothering them. Melanie would try to help anybody that came to her for help. That was what being an HR Director was all about.

Well, no. But Melanie got to decide what being an HR Director was all about. If she decided it was about this, then it was about this. That was the point. 

Melanie ducked inside her office, scowling at how bare it was. Just a desk and a bunch of shelves and bookcases. Boring, looked too much like Jon. All of the stupid offices on the third story - which previously held only Elias’, now Daisy’s, office and the secretary, who was now a cheerful Rosie again - were overly grandiose and stupid, but Melanie wanted something grandiose and stupid sometimes. Plus there was room for a couch, which was vital. 

She walked over to her desk and unlocked her computer, scanning through the hideous quantity of emails with a scowl. Everybody was bitching about the new OSHA regulations. Sorry if she wanted a safer workplace, guys! Basira was bitching about the Leitner she found in the library, and Melanie quickly responded that she’d send an Artifact Storage guy down there to pick it up. Being a librarian was a dangerous job, but somebody had to do it, probably?

There was an email from Jon, too. It just asked her to come down to the Archives. Great, an excuse to get off the computer. Melanie stood up, pointedly ignoring the huge pile of paperwork that came with starting a new department in the Archives and being the Director of that department. That wasn’t even including all of the new initiatives to do collaborations with the other cults, businesses, and groups in the fear demon community. She was going to have to learn administration. Fucking disgusting.

Oh, well. She was good at managing people. 

By the time she got down to the Archives, she could already hear a muffled argument behind the door. Good god. If Jon called her down  _ just  _ to mediate another argument, she was sending them all to sensitivity training again - and they had force sensitivity training on Tim  _ four times  _ -

But when she opened the door all she found were the three Archive assistants sitting at their desks, ferociously arguing about yet another completely idiot thing. 

“ - but if she had access to the fog dimension, then that would explain why she can disappear!” Tim threw his hands up in the air. “We all know how foggy Scotland is! It could happen!”

“We can’t make a decision about this if we don’t even know whether or not she’s carnivorous,” Martin argued back, clasping his warm mug of tea. There were mugs on everybody’s desks, still steaming. It was right after one, then. “Sasha, what do you think?”

Sasha didn’t look up from her computer from where she was ferociously tapping away at it, scowling fiercely. “Nessie is a government conspiracy to distract us from the fact that they’re putting psychedelics in the water. What psychedelics? I’m finding out.”

“Not another mystery,” Martin groaned. “Sasha, that delivery guy was  _ just  _ a delivery guy.”

“He smelled like meat!”

“He delivered sandwiches!”

“Speaking of sandwiches,” Tim said brightly, standing up and giving Melanie a hesitant smile. “I think that’s our cue for lunch.”

“Sasha, are you sure you don’t want to work in HR with me?” Melanie asked, exhausted. 

Sasha closed her laptop with a harsh click. “HR doesn’t let me go on field trips to shoot things,” she said crisply. She also glanced pointedly at Tim. “And it makes it harder to keep an eye on a  _ certain someone _ .”

Tim winced. “I found a therapist, I’m on medication, I’m halfway through Basira’s reading life,  _ and  _ I apologized fifty times -”

“And you’re making it fifty one.  _ And  _ you’re paying for lunch.” Sasha stood up, stuffing her laptop in her bag. “Where’s Jon? He’s not still working, is he?”

“I’m here, I’m here.” Jon poked his head out of his office, looking a little bedraggled. He pulled on his coat as he joined them in the cowpen, Martin standing up and passing him his own packed lunch with a smile. “Sorry, I got caught up in work. Blue Apron wants to do a sponsorship with us, by the way.”

“How’s the ratings for the new season?” Melanie asked intensely. “The audience isn’t minding the cast change-up, is it?”

“Rave reviews,” Jon said primly. “Apparently the Sasha/Tim UST’s entertaining.”

The door loudly banged open, and everybody glanced backwards to see Daisy and Basira entering the Archives. They all had their coats on, lunches in their hands. “Did you have to waste an email just to tell us to come down?” Daisy groused. “Send something in the fucking groupchat, christ.”

“It’s my way of making sure Melanie’s checking her email,” Jon said apologetically. “I’m still not sure it was a good idea to put her in charge of anything -”

“Whose idea was it to put  _ you _ in charge of anything?” Melanie asked heatedly. “Elias’? The  _ supervillain _ ?”

“He won’t stop sending us postcards,” Martin said mournfully. “Why does he have to constantly flex on us like that?”

“Daisy, fund my hunting trip into Scotland for the Loch Ness Monster,” Sasha demanded.

But Daisy just popped her gum, bored. “Can’t. Georgie and Melanie are already going to Scotland on a stupid errand, wait your turn.”

“We’re borrowing the cabin Sasha stole from Tim,” Melanie said delightedly. “There’s going to be highland cows!”

“You’ve been working so hard, you definitely need a vacation,” Tim drawled. 

“You know it!” Melanie cheerfully slapped Tim’s back, making him buckle. “Come on, Archive Team 2.0, let’s hustle. I had to email Jude Perry today, so I need to reward myself. Let’s take a three hour lunch.”

“You are  _ still  _ the laziest person I’ve ever met,” Tim said, but he followed the team out of the Archives anyway. 

Melanie lingered behind for a second after everybody filtered out, scanning the room. It looked different then it used to: instead of Daisy’s handheld game consoles scattered everywhere, Sasha’s books littered every flat surface. Tim’s weights and strength training tools were grouped in a corner, and the area around Martin’s desk held a truly obscene number of tea mugs and one notable knife driven straight into the wood. 

Some part of her was a little sad. She missed their old Archives already. With her in HR, Basira in the library, and Daisy as the Director, they didn’t get to hang out all day like they used to. Tim and Martin were stuck where they were for probably about another year, but Sasha had stayed voluntarily. She said something about genuinely wanting to research and prove or disprove the supernatural, and also to babysit Tim. Jon...Jon had known, in that simple way of his, that he was needed there. 

Oh, well. Some part of her was excited by the change. They had been stuck in limbo for so long, drifting in and out of life and wasting away valuable time. Lately, change has become one of her favorite things.

Melanie shut off the lights to the Archives, locking the door behind her as she ran to catch up with her friends. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This is the last story I will post in this AU (at least I sincerely hope so), but if you check my Tumblr (theinternationalacestation@tumblr.com) under the 'my writing' tag then you'll see some side stories set in this universe. Please, if you enjoyed the experience of this very stupid story, leave a comment! They're organic food. 
> 
> Like this story? Want more? Good news! I'm posting concurrently with this chapter the first chapter of a brand new story called 'The Sucker's Bet'. It features Jon as a himbo Avatar of the Web, Martin as a human in over his head, whacky romcom hijinks, and a 60k deconstruction of whacky romcom hijinks.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is complete and will update every *spins wheel* Wednesday? Wednesday.


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